The story of the longest night of my life03:23 Oct 30 2008
Times Read: 1,012
I warn you all now this is very very long entry. But for those of you who have heard me say I survived a man armed with an ax who tired to kill me, this is the rest of the story.
My niece asked me today who would win if Freddie Kruger fought Michael Myers; I just looked at her and said “get out of here.” She stared at me a moment not sure what set me off and then her Mom started laughing and said haven’t you ever noticed that your aunt never watches horror movies? The rest of the family loves them but I won’t even look at them. I used to love them too but as my sister told my niece that I quit watching them because of a guy trying to kill me with a double bladed ax and a very large machete. Mandy (my niece) turned big eyes to me and not really believing this wild tale asked me if that was true.
I said yes and then looked at my sis, “has she never heard this before?” My sister shrugged and said “she was probably too little to pay attention when we’ve told it in the past.” So she started asking all these questions and I ended up telling her my personal Halloween story.
In October of 89, I was working the overnight shift at the state police post where I’d been for 10 years, most of that spent on the midnight shift. On this particular night I was truly exhausted before I even got to work since I’d traded days off with my relief on the night shift so that I could go to the state capital and take a special test at 9am Wednesday, it lasted until 2pm and then I grabbed a burger and drove the 250 miles home. By the time I went on duty at 11pm I was tired and sleepy since this was the one night a week my body was used to sleeping at night. So I started my shift relieving one dispatcher at 11 and then at midnight the other second shift man left and I was alone for the night. It was a rural area but we covered 7 counties in southeaster KY having just shy of 200,000 people and just over 3200 square miles covered by my post, one of 16 that were spread across the state. On this particular night by 12:30 am I had only 2 troopers left on duty in counties adjacent to where I was working but both 20+minutes away from the post even at high speed. There was no actual state trooper on duty in the Post County where I was located but that wasn’t unusual since only a dispatcher was required to answer all calls and then contact a designated “on-call” officer if it was necessary.
It so happened that the 8 dispatchers that worked at the post had gone together and bought a 13inch television that we had sitting beside the very large radio console system so that we could catch the news or weather or more importantly the Wildcat basketball games. On this night I had it on for noise mostly since radio couldn’t be picked up inside the room with all the radio equipment we had there. But I flipped through the channels trying to find some music when I came upon a free week of a new television channel being offered in our area for the first time. It was a pay channel called Showtime and it was showing the movie Terminator, which I let run in the background while I worked filling out logs and reports from the previous day’s shifts. For some reason I was pushing myself to get all my paperwork finished very early since I usually spaced it out through the night so I’d have something to keep me busy. Rural area’s such as mine were mostly quiet during the late night well unless they were not and then it was usually a wild night.
I was inputting the day’s time sheets into a computer to send to HQ when Terminator went off and the next show they aired was The Shining. Having seen this movie many times I just wasn’t interested in listening to the screams and yelling. Heck that was too much like work! So I flipped the TV to a news station and went on doing my work. A couple hours and I was down to my last job of the night, filing away the hard paper copy of the timesheets I’d filled out. It was 2:40 in the morning when I saw headlights flashing in the front window of the post where I worked. As I watched the lights bounced around next to the building wildly and I realized the pickup had run up on the big sidewalk and guessed I needed to contact the local city police since the post was in the city limits. A new direct line had recently been installed to them in preparation for an enhanced 911 system that was being installed. I picked it up and their dispatcher picked up and I asked him to send one of his units to the post as it appeared I had another DUI on the parking lot. For some reason they were drawn to the post and I’d get on average of 1 a month that pulled right in like a drive in. Made it easy to ship them right on down to the county jail. But in this case I was quite wrong.
While I was still on the phone with the city police dispatcher I watched a very large man get out of the driver’s side of the truck and then lean back in and pick up something very long and start running toward the door.
One of my biggest complaints about working alone was that I wasn’t allowed to lock the door, it was required then that as a public building we were open 24hours 7 days a week. I cannot tell you how many times I’d slip into the bathroom only to walk out a minute later to find a strange person standing 5 feet away from me. Real reassuring for your personal safety I can tell you. But those were the rules, so I stood watching at the guy ran into the building which had concrete block walls up about 2 feet then the rest was plate glass between me and the guy. He could only see my head since I was seated behind the large radio console. He hefted the stick over his head and for an instance I was so relieved it wasn’t a shotgun or rifle that it took a second for me to register it was a double bladed ax, he was holding so threateningly. He screamed out “I’ll kill you, fat Jew boy!” and I screamed then and dropped the phone. I watched as he started running down the hallway to my office door and I pulled the plug on the headset I was wired into the radio with and heard him yell as he entered the outer office, “I’ll kill you, fat Jew bitch!” Before you ask, I wasn’t allowed to have a gun. If I had, I would have killed him. Instead I had to run.
I didn’t bother trying to explain I was not even close to being a member of the Jewish faith; I just turned and ran for the back door of my office as he came after me. Down the back hallway I ran with him closing behind me and I could hear him still screaming and yelling, though I have no ideal what he was saying I was concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible. I made it to the back door that lead to a short covered walkway then the open parking lot. It was pitch black as the light was constantly burnt out and only replaced when an inspection was coming. It was a good thing since it prevented my assailant from seeing which direction I ran into the parking lot. I had only a few seconds head start while he found his own way out of the walkway to the parking lot but I made the most of them.
I ran hard across the parking lot sliding down fast to the blacktop parking lot and crawling behind a Jeep Cherokee, there I crouched watching as he came out screaming for me to come out where he could see me and then he started searching around the lot for me. I was moving around the jeep using the tired to keep my feet hidden when he would crouch down to look at the ground. Eventually I had to move to the rear end of jeep to stay out of his sight which made me loose sight of him too.
I remember standing behind that jeep, praying that when I peeked out the other side I’d see him off from me. I know the smart thing would have been to look behind me but it was physically impossible to look behind me for that would have meant he had me and I was dead. So I peeked out like every stupid victim in every horror movie ever made. Luckily for me he’d decided I had somehow gotten back into the post and so he went to his truck and removed a very large machete and then headed right back in the front door.
I watched from the shadows, the glass giving me perfect sight into the building as he screamed a bit in the post apparently at me though I couldn’t hear him, luckily. Then he began swinging his ax at everything he could find. I watched as he took out a special trophy our post had won for recovering stolen vehicles, and every desk phone in the office. He then went to my desk and like a pro baseball batter swing his ax at the television and the glass and sparks flew wildly. Then he lay into the radio which was made of steel sheet and lots of colored plastic buttons since it was a microwave radio system with 7 towers so there were a total of 20 rows of 9 buttons and he was determined to lay waste to every singe one of those little evil things.
He destroyed the single large IBM computer that we had on a turntable so both dispatchers could use it. Then he moved to the second dispatch console and played woodcutter with it too. I slowly realized when he finished he’d might come back out and hunt me again plus I wanted this SOB caught, so I began running up a large hill behind the post to an old office building that I knew had a security guard on duty.
Okay ya’ll know that I was in no physically fit shape for running much less doing it straight up a large hill at a steep pitch. Halfway up that hill I finally heard sirens coming and remembered calling the city police for my “DUI”. Oh shit was my thought for I knew their habit was to just walk right into my building figuring I had the drunk either sitting talking or resting by then. I knew they’d walk right into this armed nut so I turned and began running back down the hill.
The first city police cruiser swung into the parking lot and the officer got out and I stood frozen across the street too out of breath to run any farther or to yell much so all I could come out with was “HELP”. He stopped and looked around to see me waving my arms like crazy right across the road and paused long enough for me to scream he’s armed. I watched as the city officer hit the radio mike on his shoulder to call for backup and unsnap his firearm. Then we both looked up as the nut case started back out the front door toward the officer. He wasn’t screaming now nor running just seemed in his own little world finally. But as he approached the city officer he was ordered to put down the weapons he still carried and he paid no attention and the officer finally fired a warning shot.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a gunshot from 20feet away at 3AM in a small town but let me tell you its crazy loud! But my nutcase paid no attention, even as another police car came screaming up behind the first with that officer getting out and demanding he put down the weapons, instead he turned toward this officer and took another step then they both fired another warning shot. I jumped 2 feet in the air but nutcase just ignored them and turned toward his open truck door. Another police car came tearing in from the other side of the building, it was a sheriff’s deputy that had heard the call for backup and rolled out since he was close by. The nutcase ignored him too and reached his open door, laying his weapons down on the seat. At this point the officers all jumped him and pulled him to the ground where a full scale free for all was fought by the 4 of them.
All I could think was my post was abandoned and I still had 2 troopers out in other counties so I ran past the wrestling match and into the post. I actually entered my office and tried to plug my headset back into the radio console when I froze. There was not a radio left there and then I smelled it. The damn thing was burning even.
I went to the back of the room where on a high shelf nearly hidden sat a small radio that appeared as nothing more than a CB radio. It was actually our emergency radio and only worked when the microwave system was shut down. I turned it on and dragged down it’s hand held microphone.
Still gasping for air, I radioed for 660 and 448, the two troopers I had out, asking them if they were okay.
448 radioed back everything was fine but 660, an older trooper that had been there when I began working at the post right out of high school, just said, “What’s wrong London?” Dispatchers didn’t use their name or numbers on the radio we just answered to the post name. All I could think to say was a guy just attacked the post and the place was wrecked. Both troopers started demanding to know if I was okay then and I told them yes I’d run. 448 had a call to clear before he could respond but 660 said he’d be there ASAP.
By now the city officer and deputy had managed to cuff the nutcase and had drug him inside the building and he was sitting in the outer office from me. I had to go to the back end of the building to find a phone he hadn’t destroyed. I called our Headquarters radio room and the old jokester that answered said what’s up?
I told him a nut had come in armed with an ax and machete and chased me from the building before returning and destroying the radio, telephones and computer. He said “nice try now pull the other one!”
I said “No Murph, I swear my radio is burning up right now and tore to pieces. I’ve got emergency radio only.” He cursed real good then asked me what I needed: I told him I needed him to put my computer on monitor so that HQ could intercept any messages or wanted/stolen hits that might come in and need immediate responses. Also I’d need the emergency telephone lines transferred to the two closest posts to me since my radio room was wrecked.”
He took care of that and lucky for me he got to call the Major, the Colonel and the Commissioner who then got to call the Governor’s office. See I could have had it worse!
I’d just got this done when my Captain, the post commander came walking in and I stared since I knew I hadn’t called him yet! But turns out when I screamed and dropped the phone the city police dispatcher was still on the line and heard it. He tried calling me back but got no answer and when that happened twice he called the captain who also lived in the city. The captain tried calling the post and when I didn’t answer he called a couple of the detectives who lived nearby and started them rolling in. He also called the second shift dispatcher who was the asst supervisor, and the guy who’d left me there at midnight. He lives less than a mile away and he was told to wait 5 minutes then report to the post too.
So by 30 minutes after it all began with the lights flashing in my eyes, I was sitting in the Lieutenant’s office writing the report on it all. The Captain was on the phone with the Major and lots of other brass while the other dispatcher was dealing with calling ever radio tech the state police had in Eastern KY to respond with every spare part they had. Seems I was right he had completely destroyed both of our radio consoles to the tune of 1 million dollars worth of radio gone.
I didn’t get off duty at 7am instead I was still writing reports and giving statements at 10am even though I was feeling half dead. I did get to slip out and call home at 8 so my family wouldn’t hear it on the news and freak out. All they said was come home soon.
By 9am the press was everywhere with satellite trucks from Lexington, Louisville and Knoxville, TN parked all around the post. I refused all interviews with the press; I didn’t want my 15 seconds of fame. Though they still managed to catch me on camera with those long distance lenses and powerful mikes while I was talking to my Dispatch Supervisor who came in as soon as they reached him on his day off.
The nutcase turns out was a Vietnam vet with mental problems and an addiction to marijuana and other drugs. He was being treated by the VA and hadn’t bothered to follow their instructions not to mix their meds with illegal drugs. He’d sat in his home, watching Showtime don’t you know (it was still on when the officers got there to execute a search warrant) and worked up a crazy mad about a gun that had been taken from him 20 years earlier and not returned on order of the Judge. He decided he’d kill whoever was at the post and take it back himself. I’d never seen or talked to the man in my life.
In the job there was always people that would get mad at me for things not going the way they wanted them to or mad because their son or friend had been put in jail, for no good reason according to them and it was always my fault. We all knew of the possibility of angry people showing up mad or catching us out in public and starting trouble. It was just another part of the job and we went on about our business. But I had always figured anyone that might try and kill me would at least be mad at me for something I’d done or said. But it’s just now how it worked out.
He was charged with all kinds of crimes including attempted murder since they found a perfect imprint of where his ax got caught on the doorframe of the office beside mine where he was chasing me and swung. They had me stand beside it and it was just perfect for my neck so he was trying for my head. Oh well, I really liked that doorframe after that, even though it would be 5+years before it’d be repaired and painted.
The guy pled guilty of lesser charges after several months of mental evaluation that determined him sane even though when the reporters interviewed him after the attack he claimed to be Jesus Christ and doing God’s work. He spent a couple of months in the local jail then before being probated and released.
For him it was over, for me it was months of nightmares, a fear of the dark that had always been my favorite time before and some really wacky gray hair that suddenly showed up. I finally got to go home that morning walking in around 10:30 to find dozens of my family there waiting for me. Brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles and friends too. Seems the news was running the story like crazy and CNN had picked it up and was showing it nationwide. I ended up with my 15 seconds of fame anyway but I would have traded it in a moment to have avoided the fears that ate at me. I was allowed one night off work to eliminate the overtime then reported right back to the midnight shift. Though it would be a very long time before I could sit outside and just enjoy the night sky as I had always enjoyed doing before he made me look for monsters around every corner.
14 years later he died alone at home, still crazy and pretty much friendless of a heart attack. Many people called me to make sure I knew about it but I had moved on long ago. I made friends with my fears and embraced my love of the night again.
The following is the headline from the Lexington Herald Leader Newspaper, page 1 news don’t you know!
Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) - October 6, 1989
MAN STORMS POLICE POST WITH AX, RUINS GEAR LONDON -- A man claiming to be Jesus Christ stormed into the Kentucky State Police post in London yesterday morning, smashing thousands of dollars in equipment with a double-bladed ax and a machete. Police arrested Kenneth Ray Smith, 43, of Bill George Road in Laurel County, and charged him with criminal attempt to commit murder, first-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest. He was held in the Laurel County Jail in lieu of a $50,000 bond. In an interview at the jail...
So now you understand why I don't watch horror movies anymore. They just can't compare to the real thing.
COMMENTS
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deathnitegrl
17:54 Oct 30 2008
Indeed ;)
xxEmaeraldxx
18:26 Oct 30 2008
That worked for me too - long may you hold a position here NG :)
LordVlkodlak
02:23 Nov 01 2008
Here's my perspective on the whole music downloading thing (and I'm not going to say you are wrong; nor am I going to encourage any illegal activity).
Why is it illegal to download music from swapping sites? This was a great idea until Metallica decided that they needed more money; and instead of putting out more albums; releasing new songs; or going on tour ... they were going to pick on us music loving folks.
What was the claim to this? That people like me were getting their music without them getting paid for it. They were losing their dimes because I didn't go down to the local music store and shell out $18.00 for a CD with only 2 songs that I wanted to hear.
Well ... here's the flaw. I did go down to the local music store; where I use to pick up CDs ... for $3 - $5 each. It was a resale store; a place where you could bring the music you no longer wanted and I could buy the music that I did want. Guess what ... the bands don't see a single thin dime from those stores.
So, how is free music swapping an illegal activity? Because the record labels decided that they were not making money off of it? If the music is out there ... somebody paid for it; and the bands got their cut.
*sorry for the rant*
As for being the big, bad Dom ... excellent work. I don't know if I would have caught that one. =)
Nightgame
04:24 Nov 01 2008
LordV, I don't disagree with you, I don't believe it is any of the music companies business since they no longer make it possible for us to purchase just the single songs that are worth anything. As you say most of the release is 2nd rate filler. But as you know my background, I've often had to follow laws and rules with which I didn't personally agree. I decided to approach it as a "could this in some way damage or implicate VR"? While we both know it wasn't meant to be encouraging illegal activity, I didn't think it worth the chance it could be construed that way.