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Jurisprudence 2012 - Alice's Tale
(Catch up on the story so far here.)
WARNING: This installment contains very graphic descriptions of beatings and violence. Not recommended for the faint of heart.
The first witness we heard from, at length, was Alice. Like all of these young women, Alice is a person for whom the linear narrative is not terribly familiar. Her life happens in episodes, and these episodes may or may not be related in a coherent fashion. Sometimes one will spark a recollection of another, and as often as not, the order of events is so chaotic as to be nearly unintelligible. Alice was not the worst of them, either: that's Rose, who comes later in the story.
Alice's involvement followed a pattern which would grow to be familiar. Her family was not particularly functional, and she was left to raise herself. I can't recall now if Alice's parents were addicted to drugs or not (I know Jennifer's parents were). In any case, she started out her life as a prostitute online, in late high school. She was introduced to the concept by a friend, after complaining that her job at KFC (or some similar place) didn't pay enough. "Why not try prostitution?" was apparently sufficient argument, once she learned how much money a prostitute could make in a night: $400-1000. That's a lot better than $9/hour, at least from a financial standpoint. The first experiences weren't great, but she got used to it quickly.
So, she started posting ads online, and meeting dates. I didn't take notes on where this was happening, but I assume she was renting hotel rooms for these activities. I think she was living with a friend during this time. At some point, Matt contacted Alice, and she started willingly working for him. This didn't make any sense to me, as she said it wasn't a romantic relationship at all, he apparently just stepped up, said "give me all your money," and she said alright. She also described a fairly heavy-handed beating policy, which seemed to be Matt's primary method of communication with her.
At some point, Matt said he was going to California, and either suggested or insisted that she should go with him. This was a trip with one other person, who I think was a male friend of Matt's. They all piled in a car, and headed south. They stopped in Portland and a few other places on the way, so she could work and make money. I started to write that she was making money to fund the trip, but I'm not actually sure that's accurate. By my reckoning, Matt was taking in anywhere from $300 to several thousand dollars a day. I have no idea where it was all going, although he seemed to have spent it all somehow.
When they reached California, they spent a few days going to different cities, mostly in the Bay Area, and Alice would be set out on the local strip to walk and make money. At some point Matt bought a new Cadillac; by new, of course, I mean "used and on the verge of breakdown," because that's apparently his preferred vehicle type. I think the California car cost him $800. Alice grew increasingly unhappy during this time, and was rewarded for her trouble with more beatings.
At some point, Matt's girlfriend, Nancy showed up. She had been in jail at the start of the trip, and came down to join in the party (and the beatings) in California. This caused some consternation for Alice (now my memory's playing tricks on me), because she thought she was Matt's girlfriend. I say my memory's playing tricks on me because I distinctly wrote in my notes that Alice didn't have a romantic relationship with Matt, although I now think that must have meant it didn't start romantically. She definitely was unhappy at Nancy's appearance because she thought she had a romantic relationship with Matt, so I'll trust my recollection in this case.
With Nancy's arrival, Matt's treatment of Alice became much worse, in any case. There was no longer any pretense of an intimate relationship between Matt and Alice. It was just, "Get out and work," and any disobedience resulted in a beating.
After some time, they turned around and headed back to Seattle. Alice described repeated beatings, although this time it was apparently because she wasn't taking her turn driving (her offers to drive were ignored). Nancy and Matt fought incessantly, at one point the car spinning 360° due to a particularly intense (and presumably physical) argument.
At this point, I lose the line of the story, and it skips ahead. Alice made a split from Matt a few times, after the second time getting him to promise to stop seeing Nancy, and stop making her walk to find dates; online only. He agreed to these conditions (I wish I could recall how she effected the split), and she came back to work for him again. Apparently he stuck to his agreement.
Matt's relationship with Alice terminated in a big blow-out.
She had been working happily enough (during this time, I think he was regularly beating her, and threatened to kill her family, although she ignored the threats, saying she was only afraid of the beatings; this despite the fact that he had taken a picture of her ID, which included her home address on it; so "happily enough" is relative). On the night of the blow-out, she'd set up a double-date with herself and another girl. She was in the bathroom with a date, and the other girl was in the main part of the hotel room. At some point, a pizza was delivered to the room, and some amount of money, possibly $300, went missing. Matt barged in -- the way she told it, he must have had psychic money-sensing powers, bursting in mere moments after the money was discovered to be missing -- and demanded to know about the missing cash.
Alice didn't know anything about it. She made it sound like it was either the other girl or the pizza delivery guy who disappeared the money, although this part of the story was never particularly well described. In any case, Matt was upset, which probably means he was being violent. Alice had had enough, and she called a friend to come pick her up. She was leaving.
This was all happening at one of the hotels on Denny Way, probably the Best Western Loyal Inn. Alice left, and went to the Hurricane (a 24 hour dive cafe) to wait for her friend to show up. Her friend showed up, and in the mean time, Matt had called her back: he'd left some stuff in the room, and she had the key. He couldn't get a key, because he wasn't registered for the room. Alice's friend (possibly named Keith -- good enough for this account, in any case) said she shouldn't help him out, but Alice was moved by Matt's request, and agreed to meet him to let him into the room, or give him the key (I forget which).
So, against Keith's better judgement, she went back to meet Matt, presumably only to receive more abuse. She fled back to Keith's car, and as she was closing the door, closely pursued by Matt, Keith was pulling away. Matt caught up with them, and pulled Alice out by her hair, ripping out a chunk of hair that took the scalp with it. Alice sat on the stand and parted her hair in a particular spot to show us the area -- about 1 square inch -- where hair doesn't grow any more, quickly and self-consciously smoothing her hair back over the spot as soon as we'd all seen it. This is an image I'll probably never forget. Alice's face registering defiance and shame in equal measures, her hands working through her hair to cover the scar.
Matt was successful in getting her out of Keith's car. No one ever said what happened to Keith, but I assume he realized he was in well over his head and took off. Matt bodily threw Alice into the back of Jennifer's car, and they went for a ride. Jennifer drove and hurled abuse at Alice (probably as much out of fear that such a thing should happen to her as any actual desire to inflict harm on Alice) while Matt punched, slapped, choked, pulled hair, and verbally abused Alice until her face was nothing so much as one giant bruise. This drive lasted several hours. Matt's message seemed to be nothing so much as "Don't cross me."
They got back to the hotel, Alice gave Matt the key, and somehow escaped (perhaps when he went up to get his Playstation 3 and other valuables he'd left in the room). She ran for it. She didn't have anywhere to go, she didn't have anyone to run to, but she ran. Down Denny Way. She said she wandered like that for a few hours, and I forget what happened to her after that, but it was the last time she saw Matt until she entered the courtroom. We found out after the trial that Alice now lives out of state, and flew in on her own dime to testify against Matt.
This story wouldn't be complete without at least a cursory glance at Alice herself. This was a young woman of perhaps 22 years, with medium brown, straight hair. She had a chubby, expressive face, and was noticeably overweight, although not grotesquely so. She was very engaged when she spoke, and frequently widened her eyes and lifted her eyebrows as if to cement a point, although these facial punctuation marks rarely intersected sensibly with what she was saying. She referred to Matt as "the Defendant" almost exclusively, calling him by name only once or twice. The Elf asked her if she'd been coached to do that, and she said she hadn't. She didn't strike me as being particularly intelligent, although I didn't have a whole lot to go on. Of the witnesses closely related to this case (which is to say, those who were not the police officers, hotel managers or other legitimate professionals), none except Matt himself impressed me as being very intelligent or self-aware.
Up next, we get bored to death (I'll skip through it so you don't have to have quite such a genuine courtroom experience).
Posted at 22:03 permanent link category: /jurisprudence
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater