For the three sisters, Ophie, Inger, and Neesha, Charlie is irredeemable. He will never be forgiven. That Charlie is likely a baby Daddy to Neesha makes no never mind. She blames Charlie for everything wrong in her life. Charlie is innately racist to his dark core.
Yes, the three women are not biological sisters. You are racist for saying that. They identify as sisters and you need to agree with that, you misogynist, white Mega MAGA asshole. Facts. Seriously.
Charlie has been absent from this space for a bit because jail was rock bottom for him. He completed six-months of inpatient rehab at Genesis House. He’s been going to meetings since. Neesha called the cops in Richmond on him when he reached out to reconcile. She accused him of stalking and abusing her. Woke orthodoxy says the accusation is enough to ruin him even more. That’s not how it went.
Training vs. Trying
Yoda, “there is no try, only do or do not.” Charlie is training because trying kept him on a treadmill of failure and escalating negative consequences. He goes to mass at Father Thomas‘ desert retreat north of Paradise Valley. Charlie’s family is Non-Denominational in that Scots/German Pentecostal tradition. Sunday is an all day affair with worship lasting until mid-afternoon followed by supper. It is a way that sings dirges about evil most of the time. Lots of “or else!” sermons.
Also lots of dead ends when Charlie had questions. Questions were doubt and doubt was a threat. So many good questions were replied to with, “You need more Holy Spirit and prayer! Praise Jesus!” When Charlie asked fra Thomas his questions he got enlightened answers. Talking to a cleric with two millennia of tradition was more soothing than an answer that felt like being cry-bullied by a coal country girl like Neesha.
How it went with Neesha is that Genesis House vetted his presence and inability to communicate without prior consent from his sponsor. The sponsor was on the call made just after lunch on a Monday. Neesha burned up the phone lines with storm of voice mails claiming Charlie was calling every few minutes threatening to murder her and her children after raping all of them.
The Goochland Sherriff went to the farm for a welfare check. It was Neesha that spent 72 hours in Gateway Homes getting back in balance. Charlie got a no-contact order at the recommendation of his sponsor. “Genesis House is racist,” said Neesha. “That Humboldt County Sherriff is bullshit.”
Mental Weather
This will be familiar to anyone close to someone mentally ill. There are periods of calm and hope punctuated by frightening outbursts of insanity. Every pause between storms there are prayers that this calm will be permanent. Sometimes it is.
It’s been quiet for Charlie. Up at 3am, get ready for work, breakfast on the fly at 4am, sling pots from 4:15 until after 1pm, lunch in the buffet, then back to the dorm, 5pm dinner, bed by 7pm.
The Escalade is at the impound lot for Humboldt County. It is evidence in a murder case so it stays. The Frontier was cosmetically nice but mechanically needed some love. This time, though, Neesha was ready. The work wasn’t major. Just a punch list of neglected services. The same farm hand that picked her up from Gilpin Court took the Frontier to a shop and waited for it.
All Is Calm
Farm time is measured in years. The meth-head fast money way lives and dies in hours and if the addiction continues, minutes and seconds. If not for Neesha’s farm manager job she was headed for those three: hospital, jail, and/or rehab. Often more than once.
It’s easier if you are not a parent. You can be out of touch for longer. Kids need their parents. So a roller-coaster of relapse, arrest, rehab hurts the kids. Neesha is many things, not all of them are helpful. One thing she is: devoted to her kids. Her devotion trumps all the antiestablishmentarian itches.
One of her old Richmond friends, “TRUMP WON!!! OMG!!! WE ARE SCREWED!!! HE’S GOING TO FORCE ALL WOMEN TO BE STERILIZED AND KIDNAP OUR CHILDREN!!! BLACK PEOPLE WILL BE INCARCERATED IN INTERNMENT CAMPS!!!” Neesha blocked the friend. The verbal throwdown shouted into, “Meh.” Neesha was elbow deep in a sink full of handwash only dishes when the message arrived. Then her daughter whining that she was thirsty.
More Evidence
The DNA evidence taken from the Escalade is back. The Goochland DA’s office has a name—Michael. Michael is Eugene‘s son. He’s been missing since 2020. Inger and Neesha saw him at the Lee Monument during the George Floyd protests, “I’m gonna grab a coffee at Starbucks.” That Starbucks was looted. In its place today is a Charley’s Cheesesteak. Charlie, offered a chance to throw a Molotov cocktail at the Lee Monument, also begged off and disappeared into the crowd.
Inger and Ophie have been following the Sheriff’s investigation. News of Michael’s passing was painful closure. It helps to know what happened to him. The news that he’s dead is hurtful. Stuffed into Michael’s jeans was a crumpled note. The note rambled on about George Floyd and the innate, irredeemable hate of white people. Michael was mixed Laotian and white.
Hate can’t always see complications, exceptions or any truth that isn’t binary. Michael was a half-white so the letter writer declared him to be full evil. It wasn’t murder because there are too many white people poisoning society. Michael was missing his left small finger. His tongue had been cut out and shoved into a pants pocket, “so he can’t speak from the grave.”
Neesha Blames Charlie
Neesha says she’s over Charlie. She is not. A good bit of her social media output obsesses over him. This message is racist, says she. There is evidence that Charlie was in the Escalade. Earlier posts show that he drove it for a bit. For Neesha, that’s enough, “He killed Michael. I know it.”
It used to work. A woman accused a man and social media would skip any investigation that didn’t convict the accused. A tribunal would be convened and the accused bullied into abasing himself. The tribunal is the punishment. No, the accused never served time. The accusation and tribunal is the punishment.
Neesha’s daughter asked, “who is my Daddy?” Neesha wouldn’t answer. This went on for a while. Until her daughter threw a fit, stopped eating, and rebelled any way a toddler can. Neesha relented, “Charlie is your father.” “Can I see him?” “No” “Why?” “Because I said so.”
Who Killed Michael?
All the Sherriff will say is that the matter is an active case. Beyond that, crickets. DNA evidence found in one of the fast food bags points to an unnamed suspect. Neesha says it’s Charlie. Because everything is his fault, facts.
It’s not Charlie. The Coroner’s estimated time of death matches to when Charlie was at work. The casino has cameras in the kitchen and Charlie is right where he is supposed to be. Yah, but Neesha feels like he could have done it, so . . .
So feels are not enough. There is video of Charlie at work and in the employees areas of the casino for a three day span before and after the estimated time of death. Maybe feels might carry the day among the three sisters. Not so much for the Goochland Sherriff.
Death Papers
Inger got the Coroner’s Report. Michael’s small left finger was amputated above the second joint. Cause of death was two bullet wounds, one to the chest that collapsed a lung and a second that entered through his right eye and exited the back of his skull. Other signs of torture included broken ribs, contusions, and missing fingernails. This was an ugly death.
One new detail about the Escalade. The body shop found an amputated fingernail in the wayback. It was tested and matched Michael’s DNA. So the Escalade is a crime scene. There is no info yet on where Michael was tortured and killed.
Nor is there evidence of a motive. Children of hippies fall into a few archetypes. One of them is the hero child. Michael felt that calm and sedate family life was achievable if he pleased his parents through achievement. He had to win because losing risked chaos at home.
A Hero’s Dark Side
We leave home with everything, good and bad, that our parents give us. Eugene is a nice old grandpa today. He fills his day with riding his custom Harley and carving wooden cross necklaces. Michael got his Dad’s fire for social justice and an ache that nothing would ever be good enough. No amount of protest, conferences, or study would fix the world’s major malfunctions. Rioting built a criminal record for the rioter and the world kept on indifferent to the misery.
Michael did well. The world saw a Pi Sigma Alpha graduate of UC Berkley and Boalt Hall. He married his college sweetheart, a daughter of Taiwanese parents and Delta Xi Phi member. His first job as a lawyer was with Gunderson Dettmer. He is survived by his wife and two kids.
Now he’s a corpse at Mealy Funeral Home, a long way from the hills above UC Berkeley. So many questions. How did this high achieving father of two end up in Virginia with an amputated finger, signs of torture and evidence of a deadly ride ending in front of my house? Well . . . that’s the story you are reading. You’ll have to follow this space for the answer.
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