From the Flower Bed of Eden, to Hell

 

Part One

Living on the Flower Bed of Eden

“You are living on the Flower Bed of Eden!”

Andrew Howard to Little Sara, age five

Arkansas, 1962 

The Flower Bed of Eden

Arkansas, February 13, 1987

Thunder rattled the windowpanes two stories high, and lightning split the sky; it was as if the whole world was in turmoil that night. My nerves were keyed up as tight as piano strings, and in a sudden moment of stillness and silence it felt as though my heartbeat was amplified ten times over. He was over a hundred pounds greater than I, nearly a foot taller, and I knew he could move his muscled body into unbelievable sprints.  Rain started falling in torrents, while the storm raged outside. I was not afraid of the storms of nature; it was the storm inside this night that I knew I might not survive.

Anticipation was so great that I wanted to scream at him to get it over with, and true to my expectation he lunged for me, and my body did not disappoint me, I flew down the stairs two at a time in my bare feet. He stalled for mere seconds to enjoy his pronouncement of a death sentence upon me:

 “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU-YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING BITCH-STONE DEAD!”  He screamed.

It was February 13, of the year 1987, the night that I disappeared into a February rainstorm with five children and no place to go. I was twenty-nine years old.

Many people asked of me since that day, many ‘whys’ and I gave many answers. It takes a lot of ‘why’s’ to make a life, mine being no exception. Maya Angelou said ‘you can’t know who I am until you know where I have been’; until you know the circumstances and people who contributed to the making of me, you cannot know me. We all are complicated mixes of many other people and life events. We are all of everything that has ever happened to us. If we suddenly got amnesia, we would cease to exist as who we were, except in the memory of others. My pain is me, and thus my life that once was, is what made me now. I am the hungry little girl who sat in the sand over sixty years ago waiting to be rescued by an ancient old man. I am Sara Niles, and this is my story.

The Deep South, 1957

I was born in the bowels of the South where willow trees hang low over ponds and creeks surrounded by the lush growth of woody fern. My beginnings were in a place where knotted old oaks twisted their knurled boughs upwards, their majestic leafage allowing slithers of light to penetrate the shadowy forest floors to lend peeks upon the backs of huge Diamondback rattlesnakes; their gargantuan size owing to seldom meeting the sight of the eyes of man, if ever at all.  I was born where the bottomland hoarded teems of wild boars known to rip hunting dogs open from end to end, and where the narrow little graveled roads twisted and wound their way past humble mailboxes, usually the only evidence of habitation miles into the forest. These humble country homes were usually only accessible by traveling down dirt, tire-rutted roads with strips of ragged grass running down the middle, like frazzled, green ribbon. This was oil country, Smackover, Arkansas, where a 1920’s oil boom produced one of the world’s biggest oil fields that created oil wells that were scattered every few miles; their slow prehistoric movements signaling that the owners were receiving money.  Neighbors lived far apart on beautiful little farms or in ragged shacks, with a Cadillac and a television, or neither plumbing nor electric power lines.  Depending upon which neighbor you were, you had plenty or nothing at all.

A New Breed of Killers: Family Annihilators by Sara Niles

Mass shootings, spree killings, and family homicide appear to have reached alarming levels in the United States, if the national news is any indication.

Mass murder by the FBI serial murder typology

is the murder of four or more people at one time, occurs in the United States every 2 weeks, and incidences of mass shootings appear to be on the increase, with over 20 having made the national news during Obama's presidency alone.

It is both frightening and awful that strangers kill strangers, who have done nothing to harm them; yet it is even more alarming to see family kill family, in mass shootings, and targeting acts of murder that includes children. The annihilation of one’s own family has become so commonplace, that a term was coined in order to label it: ‘family annihilator’.

The coining of the term “family annihilator” which has been used on television programs such as Criminal Minds has been credited to Park Dietz

Park Dietz  the famed forensic psychiatrist who testified in high profile cases such as that of Jeffrey Dahmer, The Unabomber and Andrea Yates; usually on the side of the prosecution.

A man or woman, who chooses to commit mass murder, serial murder, or spree murder, is usually a violent societal deviant; and in the absence of mental illness, such people are extremely ego-centric and often narcissistic individuals who expect the world to satisfy their needs. Regardless of whether their particular ‘world’ is comprised of one person, or includes groups and subgroups, these people feel entitled to wreak vengeance upon the center of their world, if they are pushed far enough. They feel entitled to commit murder as a final act of perverted vengeance, and they often do not have the type family bonds that prevent them from doing harm to even the most innocent of victims, their own children.  In domestic violence situations, sometimes a family annihilator steps out of his or her own dark world and invades ours. The FBI definition of a mass murder is the killing of four or more people (not counting the killer), and a family annihilator kills close relatives, even his or her own children.

Two days after Christmas, this past year, on December 27^th, 2013, in Lockport, LA, Ben Freeman killed his newest wife, then proceeds to his ex-wife’s parent’s home, where he kills his former mother in law, shoots two other former in-laws, and proceeds to a third destination and kills another person; bringing the total injured and killed to  seven, by the end of his rampage:rampage

There have been many cases like Freeman’s, some much worse, such as the family killing spree of James Rupert in 1975, in which he killed 11 family members on Easter Sunday, the  Easter Sunday Massacre

On Christmas Day, 2011, in Grapevine Texas, a man dressed  himself as Santa and killed six of his family members during a Christmas party, before killing himself: Father Kills family dressed as Santa

It is most likely Freeman expected to kill his former wife and his children, but they were not home. The individual, who can murder family members and especially their own children, is a strange monster in society; an aberration of a human so far removed from normal, that they become fascinating in their deviance. People want to know why a person can do such a horrible thing, and what type person can obtain educations, like normal people, ambitiously pursue careers, like normal people, and impress their friends and co-workers-once again-like normal people; yet be so far from normal.

The  FBI identified traits that are common among serial murderers that also fit into Dr. Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Check-List, revised (PCL-R), and those traits are also held in common with many individuals with a pattern of extreme domestic violence: charm,  exaggerated sense of self-worth, lack of true empathy, and resistance to the acceptance of blame ; among a plethora of other traits.

These men or women are great actors, who manage to take on the role of being a caring and giving person, a romantic, and a devoted parent; when in fact, the deep love of others that gives such a role legitimacy, is sadly missing. By the time the victims discover this discrepancy, the abuser is heavily invested in the relationship and refuses to let go. They tend to delude themselves into a feeling of being wronged by others, and become obsessed with the idea of punishing those who have wronged them, at all costs. Once men, or women like this reach the point of no return, their own emotional ‘tipping point’, it is often too late, because they set out to kill.