PRISON LIFE FOR ONE BAD MAN

From the accounts of prison life from people who toured the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, it sounds worse than they expected.

Apparently it’s uncomfortable, stinky, cold, and no one cares about them as much as they’d like.

I will agree with them even though I’ve never had the jail door slam behind me after being found guilty in a court of law and sentenced to do time.

Sounds pretty boring, right? I like to think of it as good citizenship.

For some unknown reason I’ve always been nerved-out enough by jails and prisons to walk far, far, from the behavior that separates the free from the imprisoned.

Whether it’s fear or caution or just the simple luck of being raised by good parents who wanted the best for their boy, jail never seemed like a destination.

Again, boring? But why have I had the willies about anything related to getting locked up?

One Bad Man Made The Worst Human List For Prison Life

A bad man was jailed in 1977 on a twenty year sentence for rape. He was released in 1986.

To show he’d reformed after doing his time, he got out and raped two more women, getting sent back to prison on the second while the first went undiscovered.

It was a cold case for sixteen years.

2

If you see anyone you know on the evening news don’t you stop and turn up the volume?

I walked by the television and called to my wife,

“Sara’s on the news.”

Sara was part of our circle of friends in Northwest Portland before we got married.

A balance of kindness, beauty, and a wild streak for leather jackets and motorcycle riders, she was fun to be around.

Since I didn’t have a leather jacket or a motorcycle, and had a girlfriend, we were free to like each other.

She gave me a most unique birthday present one year, teaching me how to play the Beatles’ Blackbird on guitar.

After I played it well enough to pass her test, she loaned me The Deluxe Peaceful Easy Feeling Songbook and told me which songs to practice.

“I’m in the band?” I said.

We laughed and played our song for the rest of the party.

“This is a present you can’t take back,” she said.

One Horrible Day In St. Johns

A few years went by, people changed, moved, started new things with new people.

Sara bought a house in St. Johns and looked set for the next exciting stage of life. She and her dog were set.

One horrible day in St. Johns the police and fire department responded to a call to Sara’s house.

She and her had died in a fire.

Further investigations showed she’d been murdered, a rape/murder.

Who did this? Where were they? No one knew.

Sixteen years later I saw Sara’s picture on TV.

Sixteen years after her death convicted felons in the Oregon State Prison were subjected to DNA testing regarding cold cases.

The bad man arrested in 1987 for the same things he was convicted of in 1977 had added Sara to his list before moving on to the crime he was arrested for.

For sixteen years the people who knew Sara lived with the heebeejeebies of knowing a killer had done his foul deed and not been made to answer for his crime.

His time came before he was released again. It was a huge relief because of the unknown becoming known. The man charged looked like a murder/rape man with an evil look on his evil face.

He looked like prison life, still life.

Over the years I’ve thought of Sara when I hear certain songs.

We’re still a band when I hear Someday Soon:

There’s a young man that I know whose age is twenty-one
Comes from down in southern Colorado
Just out of the service, he’s lookin’ for his fun
Someday soon, goin’ with him someday soon

My parents can not stand him ’cause he rides the rodeo
My father says that he will leave me cryin’
I would follow him right down the roughest road I know
Someday soon, goin’ with him someday soon

But when he comes to call, my pa ain’t got a good word to say
Guess it’s ’cause he’s just as wild in his younger days

So blow, you old Blue Norther, blow my love to me
He’s ridin’ in tonight from California
He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me
Someday soon, goin’ with him someday soon

No motorcycles or leather jackets but this is Sara’s guy, the one she wants more than anything, the one she’ll go down the roughest road with.

Someday came too soon for her, but remembering the love in her smile and light in her eyes has gone away.

The original version of this post was the first I wrote for this blog in 2012.

Been a long time.

2

From: http://www.crimevictimsunited.org/issues/repeatoffendersdata.htm

(Scroll to the third entry on 2003.)

“In 1977, ++++ was convicted of robbery and sodomy and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 1986.”

“In 1987, ++++ was rearrested and convicted of rape, sodomy and multiple counts of robbery, and was again sentenced to 20 years in prison.”

“In May of 2003, ++++ was connected to the November 21, 1986 murder of 30-year-old Sara C. Zirbes.”

From:http://www.portlandonline.com/Police/pbnotify.cfm?action=ViewContent&content_id=474

“On Thursday, May 1, 2003, Homicide Detectives arrested 53-year-old ++++ on six counts of Aggravated Murder in connection with the November 21, 1986 murder of 30-year-old Sara C. Zirbes.  At the time of the murder, Zirbes lived in a home in North Portland, which was set on fire after the murder.  Zirbes had been the victim of a sexual assault.  The investigation was recently re-opened and ++++ was linked to the crime by a combination of forensic evidence and witness testimony.  ++++ has spent the last 16 years in the custody of the Oregon State Penitentiary on unrelated charges.  ++++ will be arraigned on Monday May 5, 2003.  Photographs of both ++++ and Zirbes are available, via email, from the Portland Police Bureau Identification at (503) 823-0382.  Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Cheryl Kanzler at (503) 823-0865 or Detective Paul Weatheroy at (503) 823-0458.  This investigation is continuing.”

3

Sara’s was a gentle life to cherish forever.

“So glad I came across this article, thanks for writing it. Just had some time today to indulge some random Google tangent-chasing, and ended up here. I grew up around the corner from the Zirbes girls in Racine (Wisconsin), and Beth was a year behind me in school. I remember a lot of summer days playing baseball at the diamond across the street from their house. We never became friends, but as I recall we were friend-ly. It had been a good many years since I’d last seen any of them, and although we’d never really been friends, I remember being stunned when my mom told me that Sara had been murdered somewhere out west, and that nobody knew who did it. It felt like an assault on my childhood, and it was downright creepy that the crime seemed unlikely to be solved. That’s the last I’d heard of it until today, 20-some years later. So … it’s nice to hear that the guy was finally connected to the crime and is paying for it (after a fashion). And nice to see Beth chiming in here — evidently all grown up and enjoying a good life. So I just wanted to say thanks for the article, and hello to Beth, with much-belated condolences.”