ArsenousApplePie

On March 31st, 2015, Cai Xia Liao drugged and bound her former lover, threatened and beat him, then killed his grandson and wife. She had planned to kill his daughter as well, but was arrested before she could carry out that part of her plan. She waited ten hours for his wife to return home while he laid bound on the floor, slipping in and out of consciousness. At some point during her wait, she attacked his grandson with garden shears, fatally wounding the four year old. Hours later, she butchered his wife in the same manner and enthusiastically described the violence to her captive. Neighbors witnessed the murder, as it occurred in the driveway, and immediately called the police. Liao was arrested shortly after. She plead guilty to the murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a mandatory 32 years. The judge remarked that even in court, it appeared that she still had no grasp on the severity of what she had done. I’m including the real name of the murderess in this one, but omitting most defining characteristics and the names of the victims and their families. This is such a recent crime, so I feel the need to be a little more sensitive, but want to allow anyone who wishes to learn more to search for information on their own.

I’m a big fan of Korean horror movies. But reading about a crime that could easily be a plot pulled from one is jarring, to say the least.* I was hesitant about doing this character, but the more something confuses me, the more I’m drawn to learning about it. Unfortunately, this murder just took place a little over two years ago, and not much has been written about it outside of the typical news coverage. One of the main reasons I pushed myself to discover more with this one is a book I finished recently called “The Girls.” It’s by Emma Cline and tells a fictionalized version of the Manson murders from the point of view of a woman who was just a girl when the murders took place. She had been close with the girls who committed the murder, a girl named Suzanne in particular, and avoided being a part of it almost by chance. Her inner dialogue is what got me, though. She’s a bit flawed and extremely paranoid, but she does instill the feeling that it’s a wonder more women don’t commit murder. All the random public groping, lewd comments, being told how we should and shouldn’t act by people we think are on our side, and the never ending expectation to please everyone. Rage is a common emotion, but repressing it is a skill most of us pick up at an early age and hone throughout our lives. She wonders how easy it would have been for her to unleash this rage on that innocent family. There are no excuses for these crimes. Both Suzanne and the woman in this next story killed young children because of an obsession over a man. They aren’t good people, or even somewhat sympathetic, and unlike a lot of the women I write about, it isn’t easy to see why they did what they did. But it’s precisely why I think they’re so important to talk about. None of us are above becoming monsters. Its important to think about where all that repressed rage comes from and how easily it could be unleashed. It really puts in perspective how important it is to address the roots of our anger. *Just an FYI: This crime didn’t happen in Korea, but if you’re familiar with any of the big movies in this genre, you’ll quickly realize why I drew that comparison.

I gave him fair warning. “I can’t live a normal life like everybody else,” I told him, “I am filled with hate.” I was even more direct at times: “If you leave me I will get revenge: I will kill your wife.” None of this meant anything to the man. “Just be patient.” He told me. “Calm down.” If you tell a man you plan on killing his wife and all he does is tell you to calm down, at this point, he’s just encouraging you to do it. He did nothing to stop me. Didn’t call the police, didn’t apply for a restraining order, did nothing at all. Not a damn thing. In fact, he did the one thing that is guaranteed to escalate an angry woman’s furor — telling her to “calm down.”

We had met while he was separated from his wife. He promised me a new life, a marriage, the ability to live closer to my grown children. He made plenty of grand promises, but, as with most promises made by horny men, they fell through. We were together for a few years and I loved him, I had grown attached to him. I thought he loved me too, but suddenly he was back with his wife and I meant nothing. I was tossed aside like an old newspaper.

“If she doesn’t die,” I told him, “there’ll be big issues.” He told me to go home. I said to him “I’m not going home, I’ll come and kill her if she stays in this house. If you keep her as your wife. I’m going to the supermarket, I’m buying a few big knives, and I’ll run straight back here, darling.” Are you curious how he responded to such a threat? This slimy son of a bitch looks at me And says, “Don’t be mad. Just be patient.” Patient for what? For you to divorce your wife, to stop dicking around with my emotions, or for you to finally grow some balls and talk to me about your true emotions? No, I could not be patient. I could no longer tolerate his slimey, deceitful ways. I wanted him to suffer.

Everything I did was because of him. I may have committed the crimes, but he drove me to do it. He forced me to act the way I did — my thinking, my actions, my behavior. It was all because of his callousness. “What you’re going to see,” I warned, “will be most tragic, and it’s all because of you.” I suppose I should warn you as well, that this story will indeed be most tragic, but this is by no fault of your own, my dear listeners. You are all quite wonderful to me, taking the time to listen to my ramblings-on of a most terrible man.

Early one morning, I drove to his house and waited nearby. I watched as his wife got into her car and left for work. Soon after, I knocked on his door, asking if we could talk. He claims that I drugged him then, while he was asking me to leave — I suppose he wanted to place himself in the best possible light, but for me to spike his drink, I’d have to be in his house. He let me in, and I added a sedative to his tea while he was checking on his grandson.

He came to some time later, lying on the lounge room floor, mouth stuffed with a rag, and his arms and legs bound with simple masking tape. He could have easily broken free, but the sedative seemed to be having an effect on him. So he repeatedly slipped in and out of consciousness.

In one of his brief moments of consciousness, he begged me not to hurt his family, to hurt him instead, because they were all innocent in this. Of course they were! I would never murder anyone because they did me wrong, that’s just silly. That’s not really suffering, the most you can do is prolong the process, in which case you’re simply torturing them, a pain that seems terrible, but is ultimately fleeting. Once they’re dead, they’re dead. Maybe if I still loved him, I would have killed him. But under the circumstances, he did not deserve that kindness.

The worst pains that we feel, my dears, are not physical at all. To truly destroy a person, it takes calculated mental anguish. And mental anguish was my goal. Do you recall that silly playground rhyme? Where “sicks and stones may break my bones, but words ...” I can’t even finish that line without bursting into laughter. People think so primitively. As if being wounded is somehow worse than emotional torment designed to drive you to suicide (for, at that point, it is your only means of relief) or, ideally, a torment that you force yourself to weather, that you’re stuck with for the rest of your miserable, night terror filled, pathetic, lonely life. You die bitter and old, angry at the world, but mostly at yourself, having never found any semblance of peace. That, my darlings, is true suffering.

The scoundrel regained consciousness sometime that afternoon. I watched him. “What time is that bitch coming home?” I kicked him in the head and face, I stamped my foot down hard on his chest, as I told him: “I will kill your wife as soon as she returns home.” I put the garden shears up to his face, dangling the pointed ends ever so close to his eye, and told him I’d push them in if he made a single noise or called for help.

I heard a car pull up in the driveway. Looking out the window, I saw it was her. I attacked her in the driveway with my gardening shears (Why hadn’t I gone to the market for those knives like I said I was going to? That would have made this whole thing so much easier.) Alas, I was armed with garden shears, and I had to make due. I believe they counted 23 stab wounds, but I wasn’t keeping track at the time.

I ran back in the house: “I used these,” I exclaimed, holding up the shears. “I cut that bitch's throat. I’ve killed everyone you love to make you suffer and if I'm happy, maybe I'll let you go with them." This was an empty promise. Of course I would never be happy enough with the man to let him die as well, to be some sort of martyr or sympathetic character. And especially because he couldn’t feel the pain and suffering if he was dead. Their deaths would have been in vain, and that would just be cruel — to kill someone for no reason. No, their deaths had a purpose — they were designed to destroy his life.

He was confused that I had said “everyone.” “I killed your grandson earlier this afternoon,” I dropped the bloodied garden shears but an inch from his face, “while you were sleeping. And I think I’ll wait here for your daughter to come pick him up. Perhaps I’ll kill her as well. You won’t have anyone then, will you?” I reclined on his couch, rather triumphantly, I might add.

Neighbors called the police because of the commotion in the driveway, but I wasn’t very concerned with that. I hadn’t intended to get away with it. I’m not that naive. I just wanted him to suffer. And he is. I hear his family has shunned him — his daughter and her husband will not speak to him. For this was a problem of his own creation. They see that. I sometimes wonder if he does, if he ever will. I may be in prison for life, but its wholly worth it knowing that I’ve caused his mind to trap him in his own personal hell until his dying day.

In 2014, a letter that Winnie Ruth Judd had written to her attorney Howard G. Richardson in 1933 was discovered within the Arizona state archives. It had been there since 2002, when it was donated, along with other letters Winnie had written to her attorney’s wife, begging for the original letter back. Mrs. Richardson did not comply, but it seems the family decided to wait until Winnie Ruth’s death to donate the letters. This new confession letter matched up with police reports, trial transcripts, and recently discovered affidavits, but contradicted what many attorneys and historians had long believed about Mrs. Judd — that she killed her friends in self defense and had help dismembering one of the bodies. So sure was everyone that the petite, frail Mrs. Judd couldn’t have done this alone, the jury handed down a death sentence just to coax her into revealing her accomplices. She was ultimately declared insane and sent to a state mental hospital for nearly four decades, where she proceeded to escape seven times. Once, in 1962, she ran off to Northern California, called herself Marian Lane, and remained on the run for seven years. She was paroled in 1971, and became a hot topic for crime writers and historians.

On a Sunday evening in 1931, I walked into Phoenix’s Union Station and boarded the night train to Los Angeles. As I slept through the night, blood began to seep though my luggage trunks, pooling on the floor of the luggage car. I must admit, however, that despite the uncertainty of what was to come, I slept more soundly during that overnight journey than I had in months.