Chapter 1

Ten year old-Jack Jasper was walking home from Cerritos elementary school, outside of East Los Angeles. Jack was in rush to get home as he ran his fingers across the chain-link fence of the schoolyard, down the street from his house. Standing just shy of five feet tall, with green eyes and black hair and a wiry strength to his young frame.

Jennifer Jasper was full blooded Irish and had had Jack with her first boyfriend, a Mexican who belonged to a gang in East Los Angeles. Two years after Jack was born his father was killed in a drive-by shooting. A few months after the death of Jack’s father, Jennifer met Randy, the plumber, who was several years older than she was but who made a good living and wanted to take care of her and little Jack. After a few years of marriage, Randy’s drinking became a problem, his temper intensified and he began using his fists on Jennifer. Jennifer visited the hospital once a month with injuries but never once pressed charges, just thankful he never touched her son.

Jack was passing the neighbors’ house when he heard his mother’s screams coming from his house. Jack ran up to the front door but it was locked, so he quickly dashed across to the living room window as his mother’s screams reverberated through the small house on 207th street. Jack watched as his stepfather Randy pulled his mother by the hair with his left hand and slapped her face with his right, blood running from her lip and her eye turning black. A feeling of alarm crept up in Jack and grew as he continued to watch and now the feeling was turning to rage. Jennifer curled herself up into a ball, crouching in the corner of the room, while Randy stood with a Budweiser in one hand, his shirt off and his fat belly hanging over his jeans as he pulled off his black leather belt and started taunting her with it.

Jack raced around to the back patio door, turned the knob and found it was locked, so he reached into his shirt, pulled the leather string with the house key from around his neck and carefully opened the door.

Shutting the door gingerly so as not to make a sound, he heard his mom cry out, “Please, don’t hit me with the belt!”

Jack listened as he heard his stepfather scream back at her, “Have you learned your lesson?”

Jack slid open a kitchen drawer, looked through the knives his mother used to cut meat, and then saw the big, shiny one with the black handle. His heart began to beat faster and his stomach muscles tightened. You won’t hurt my mother any more!

Randy dropped the belt and took a long pull from his beer. He was having a hard time standing without swaying, after drinking all day. He fumbled with his zipper and pulled out his penis. “Now, Jennifer, take care of this real good, and I will forgive you and spare you a beating.”

Jack stood motionless at the doorway and saw his stepfather with his back to him, and his mother crying, her face smashed in to his stepfather’s crotch.

Randy leaned his head back with his eyes closed. “That’s the way, baby!” Then, without warning, Randy felt a sharp pain in his side. He turned quickly, but Jack had both hands on the blade and was screaming at the top of his lungs. “Die! Die! Die!”

Jack drove the blade in farther, not realizing he had penetrated Randy’s liver, and Randy dropped to his knees. Jack pulled the knife out and started stabbing him repeatedly and screaming, “Die! Die!” Randy collapsed, face forward onto the ground, blood splattering everywhere as Jack continued to drive the butcher’s blade into Randy’s back, chanting like he was in another world, “Die! Die!”

“Jack! Stop!” cried Jennifer.

Jack did not even look at his mother as he extinguished the last of the life that had existed in the evil man who had tormented them for years. Jennifer ran from the room in horror, hysterical, just wanting to get away from all of the blood. Jack’s words echoed after her as she ran out the front door: “Die! Die! Die!”

Jack felt his arms tiring with every plunge of the big knife, and the bloody handle was becoming harder to hold onto as it grew slippery from the blood. Gaping cuts were all over Randy’s back, and Jack’s face had so much blood spray on it that he could taste the metallic tang of the blood in his mouth.

Sirens whined in the distance and people from the neighborhood gathered outside their houses, in their front yards, trying to see what all the commotion was about. Jennifer was out on the front lawn on her knees in a torn dress shrieking at the top of her lungs that her son had gone crazy and was killing her husband.

A police car raced up to the house where Jennifer was writhing in the front yard, and within a few minutes officers were in the house confronting Jack. Jack Jaspers was still straddling his stepfather’s back with the butcher knife gripped tightly in his right hand.

“Drop the knife, son!” commanded one of the officers.

Jack felt reality slowly settling in as he dropped the black butcher’s knife on the wooden floor and stood up slowly, covered in blood, looking like a scene from a horror movie. The officers briskly grabbed Jack, handcuffed him and marched him out the front door where other officers were taping off the area and keeping people back from the house.

Jack looked at his mother as the tall police officers frog-marched him across the grass to the squad car. The next door neighbor was comforting her as a police officer asked her questions. Jennifer refused even to look at her son as he was put in the back of the squad car. An ambulance approached with sirens blaring as the police car that carried Jack in the caged back seat pulled away from the scene.

Jack was silent throughout the ride to the hospital, where the police took him after the officer explained that they wanted to have him checked for injuries. The officers asked Jack what had happened several times and in different ways. But Jack remained quiet, still experiencing a sensation as if he were floating above the events and watching all that was happening, rather than living it. The feeling was one he had never experienced before and he knew his mother could never stand up for herself or him, and he alone was the one responsible to fix it. If my Dad was alive he would have taken care of it and today he is proud of me!

Three hours later the doctors at the hospital released Jack back to police custody with a clean bill of health. From there the officers transported him to Juvenile Hall for holding and evaluation.

Jack was put into a cell that night by himself where he plopped himself down on the bottom bunk of the bunk beds that filled the small room and pulled the thin, wool blanket up to his neck to stay warm. It felt as if the air-conditioning was set to freezing as he gripped the blanket tightly and thoughts of what happened flashed through his mind. Visions shot through his brain like a slide show, playing as if in slow motion as he watched himself slam the knife with all his might into his stepfather’s back. Blood and sweat ran down his face, and he could hear his mother screaming for him to stop as he floated above the scene, his body growing colder and colder when he realized the sin of taking someone’s life…

Shivering, he closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly shut, trying to force the thoughts out of his head as heard his stepfather’s death rattle singing in his ears. A few minutes later his body relaxed, his mind drifted off and he fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 2

“Judgment”

Jack refused to cooperate with the child psychologists or with the detectives who questioned him about the day he killed Randy the Plumber. To Jack, many of the questions were self-explanatory and he wondered why they even asked; were they stupid? After awhile, Jack decided he would just remain silent, since he was tired of hearing questions whose answers should have been self-evident.

Three months later Jack Jasper was in court, waiting for Judge Hart to sentence him. Jack had never denied his actions. The judge had reviewed all the details of the crime as well as the evaluations from different psychologists. Judge Hart had read through the police reports countless times, and studied the juvenile probation officer’s recommendations. Now, perched on his bench above Jack, he flipped through the file one last time, and stopped at one of the crime scene photos. The photograph depicted the front yard of Jack’s house shortly after the police had taken custody of Jack. Jack Jasper was standing handcuffed next to Randy Jaspers’s dead body, covered in blood and wearing a look of no remorse. Judge Hart searched the picture and took in every detail. Jack, why did you do this? You were not molested or beaten, only your mother was. Judge Hart stared at Jack’s eyes in the photo and was convinced. No, Jack, I am not going to take a chance on you.

Jennifer Jasper was seated in the middle of the courtroom by herself and looked like she was attending a funeral rather than a hearing regarding the future of her son. 

Two days had passed before Judge Hart was ready to pass judgment on the case. The courtroom was hot and stuffy and filled to the capacity with press and curious citizens do the cases circumstances.

Jack knew it would be like the movies and the Judge was going to throw the book at him and then they would come and hall him away.  No matter what happened he knew he was glad about what he had did and would not apologize for it like his mother and attorney wanted him to.

  The large black bailiff with a small coffee stain on his shirt from earlier coughed and then called the court to order and the room quickly quieted as Judge Hart entered the courtroom and took a seat at his podium. 

Jack was standing alongside his attorney as they waited for Judge Harts decision.

Judge Hart rubbed his hand against the cherry wood and had a withdrawn look to him from not getting enough sleep and being troubled by this case.  He adjusted his glasses and then opened the manila folder in front of him that contained his ruling in California VS. Jack Jasper.

“Jack Jasper, I have served on this bench for thirty-seven years and I have passed judgment on several thousand young men like yourself, but I have never had one with as serious charge as you have and express no remorse what so ever for the victim, in this case who was your step-father.  I read through over a dozen evaluations and they all stated the same thing. So I would like to clarify a few things before I sentence you Jack, can you do that for me?”

Jack shuffled his feet a little closer to the desk and could feel all of the eyes on him and he could hear the whispers he could just not make out the words, but he was breathing deeper and the feeling of floating seemed to be returning and the separation of his mind and body.

“Yes, you’re Honor.”

“Jack I understand your step-father Randy Jasper was very abusive to your mother and you on a regular basis?”

Jack looked up at the attorney because he did not quite understand the question.  Spencer Wagner Jack’s attorney leaned down and whispered; “he is asking you if Randy beat you and your mother on a regular basis.”

Jack nodded slightly that he now understood the question.

“Yes you’re Honor he did.”

“Jack, do you wish you would have told one of your teachers at school or called the police instead of doing what you did?”

Jack felt the floating feeling taking over again and his fear with it and only resolve and truth were left.

“No your Honor, he needed to die!”

Judge Hart seemed disturbed by the reply and closed the folder in front of him like now he was sure about his ruling.

  “Jack Jasper, you will be remanded to the California Youth Authority were you will remain until you are twenty-five years of age. “

The judge stood up to leave and the court room became noisy again and the bailiff went over to Jack to escort him from the courtroom.

Jennifer Jasper sat silently as the bailiff escorted her son to the side door to be transported to Youth Authority.

Jack looked over his shoulder and could see his attorney Spencer Wagner comforting his mother with a hug as she was crying and would not meet Jacks eyes as he left the room. 

Forty-five minutes later Jack was in the back of a white van, lots of thoughts and anticipation were racing through his mind but none were fear.  Excitement filled his small body as felt he was starting a new adventure.

It was October of 1993 and there are 8,500 youths incarcerated that were under the age of eighteen and 1,500 between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.  They were housed in over eleven locations along with four conservation camps spread across the entire state of California.

The white Ford van pulled into the Youth Authority off whiter Boulevard and Hadley street that was used as a reception and evaluation center to where would be the best location to house the juvenile. 

Jack was hustled into the building were several other kids his age and older stood in lines being processed into the facility.  Jack felt the guard push him on the back in the direction of the line with the most kids waiting in it. 

“Jasper,  go stand in that line.”

Jack stood in line and was watching the heavy set lady on the other set of the counter handing the boys blankets and other stuff as it became there turn at the front of the counter.  The boys in front of him all seemed somehow to know each other and were several years older.  Jack knew he was small for his size and he was always able to spot a bully and these boys in front of them all fit the part.

Margo was sixty two years old and had been handing out clothes for the last twenty to the troubled youth.

“State your name.” Said; Margo.

“Jack.”
“Your last name stupid.”

“Jasper.”

“Jack Jasper, what size shoe do you wear?”

“Umm, size five.”

Jack watched the lade as she moved like a robot pulling sheets, blanket, shoes, from the shelf then she stared at him for a moment sizing him up and she pulled three pair of pants and three shirts from another shelf along with two laundry bags that were different colors and socks and underwear. 

“Jasper put everything into your laundry, then go stand in the next line so you can receive your housing assignment.”

A few minutes later and Jack had received his housing assignment, building D, room 3, bed 9.

They sent Jack into another room from there to wait with a few boys and then they would be escorted to their new home. 

The small waiting room was filled with kids who were older and some had mustaches and half beards. Out of ten kids waiting there was only three that were remotely close to Jack’s age.  Jack took a seat at the end of one of the benches and didn’t initiate any conversations.

They had been waiting for an hour before the guard came over to escort them over to the building. 

The overweight guard in the green uniform yelled; “everyone in Building D, line up in a single file.

Jack followed the guy in front of him as they walked down a cement pathway, passing through two gates that were surrounded by twelve foot fences with razor wire clustered together in rows for the length of the fence.   Jacked noticed the guard talking into his walkie- talkie each time they came to a gate and then the gate would automatically open. 
Building (D) was large and had two big metal doors and seemed more like a high school gym than it did a prison or at least compared to the ones he had seen on television.

“Alright you guys go find your bunks and get settled in.” Said; the guard. 
Jack followed the other boys in and his laundry bag was becoming heavy and he looked at his bed slip. There were several hundred boys in the large gym like room walking around, some reading and others working out. There was also a room in the corner with desks and chairs and looked like a classroom of some type.

Jack found his gunmetal grey colored bunk bed in the corner of the room; there was a skinny black kid on the top bunk who gave a faint smile. Jack set his laundry bag down on the slim mattress that rested on the bottom bunk. 

The black kid on the top bunk rolled over on his stomach and hung his head over the side to look at Jack.

“Who are you?” Said; the kid.

Jack looked up at the kid; “who are you?”

“I am Marvin, from Inglewood.”

Jack digested what the kid had said and saw him as no threat and no harm iin telling him his name. “ I am Jack, and I used to live in Cerritos.

Jack had a blue striped wrist band around his wrist that identified him to the correctional staff as a offender serving time for murder.

“Marvin, how long have you been here?”

Marvin smiled big exposing a row of aspen white teeth.  “ I have been here two weeks and I should be getting transferred soon.”

Jack’s expression changed.  “Transferred?”

Marvin hopped down from the upper bunk and felt he was important because he knew something his new Bunkie didn’t and he wanted to share it with him.

“Jack we are only here for a few weeks, they test us for diseases and education, and how we get along with others and after they complete that we move on to are new hall.

Jack was a little confused by this. “How do you know this Marvin?”
“The older guys told me.” Marvin pointed at a group of boys across the  room that all seemed much older.

Jack watched the boys Marvin had pointed out for a minute there were at least a dozen young men congregated; playing cards and the one not playing were watching the others.

“Jack don’t stare, at them.”  Said; Marvin.

Jack looked back at his bedding sitting on his mattress. “I guess I will make up my bed.”

Jack spent the next ten minutes making his bunk up and then put away the few possessions that he owned.