Everything She Ever Wanted (110 page)

could not have everything, no matter how hard those around her scurried

to please her, she was often depressed.
 
She thought she knew what she

needed to make her happy-but it never had made her happy for even two

weeks.
 
By the time Pat met Tom, she had lost the capacity for

happiness, if she'd ever had it at all.

She may have also suffered from another less well known disorder that

psychiatric scholars have isolated, one with a long technical name and

an impossible-to-pronounce common name: "Chronic Factitious Disorder

with Physical Symptoms""Munchausen Syndrome."
 
Unlike most people who

dread the antiseptic smell of a hospital corridor, those who suffer

from Munchausen's crave medical settings.
 
They truly enjoy the

excitement of hospitals, the attention and the drama of being attended

by nurses and doctors.
 
They are so attracted to this milieu that they

actually cause themselves pain to get there.

Munchausen's goes far beyond hypochondria, whose sufferers imagine

symptoms of practically every disease they hear about.

Munchausen's often involves actual self-mutilation.
 
Susan had seen her

mother beat herself with pots and pans until she was badly bruised.

The deep fissured scar on Pat's right buttock was the result of her own

deliberate and repeated probing at an initially small wound with

bacteria-covered instruments.
 
The pain involved must have been almost

unbearable-yet she craved attention and excitement so much that she

exacerbated that wound over and over and over.
 
At one point, she came

perilously close to death from blood poisoning.
 
And she had done it to

herself.

Pat's history of illnesses and in'uries was lengthy and unique.
 
She

cried "Rape!"
 
so often that she eventually became laughable.
 
She

collapsed and had to be rushed to hospitals time and again.
 
Only Pat

would have almost welcomed the bite of the brown recluse spider.
 
It

meant she could spend weeks in a hospital, a pleasant alternative to

prison.
 
And, like many who love being hospitalized, she was addicted

to drugs-Demerol for one; even Margureitte testified to that.
 
The true

state of Pat's physical and emotional health may never be completely

known or understood.
 
She herself might have been powerless to control

it.

But it was among the strongest weapons in her arsenal to exert control

over others.

Pat never seemed comfortable in her own skin.
 
Indeed, she attempted to

literally destroy her own body.
 
And despite the control she wielded

over others, it was quite possible she felt no power at all-except with

her dolls.
 
Her dolls always did what she wanted them to do.
 
She was

the center of their universe, just as she would be the center of the

world she had hoped to create for herself-Zebulon.
 
There she could be

Scariett and Tom her rich and blindly devoted Rhett- Perhaps because

her world did not give her everything she ever wanted, Pat could not

stand being herself.

Scarlett had been full of strength, a woman who could stand alone and

fight for what she wanted.
 
In the end, Pat was only a pale

imitation.

Pat's effect on what was once a solid-if slightly eccentricfamily was

devastating.
 
Even when she was in prison, she called the tunes and

kept her mother bound to her.
 
Back in Hardwick for the second time in

1991, Pat was not doing well-according to Boppo, who reported that she

had had another stroke and was in a wheelchair, unable to walk or

talk.

Also in a wheelchair, Boppo was far more worried about her child than

she was about her own imminent death.
 
And all around them lay the

evidence of the destruction of a family, caused not by the neglect of a

child-but by the utter, complete, almost mindless, indulgence of a

child.

The only member to survive with dignity was the one they had all

reviled-the one who had the courage to do what she knew was right even

if it went against the family: Susan.
 
They all quoted Mary Siler, but

no one but Susan had listened to her words: "What we have done will

soon be a sealed book.
 
If it's been good or bad, we can't change it.

It will stand as it is.
 
It is sad, for some of us will have marked up

pages in our book from many unkind words to someone, or maybe we did

not try hard to make others' lives happy .

Mary Valli Siler *ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although the author's name is the

only one that appears on the jacket of a book, I suspect few readers

realize that we are supported by a benevolent army of editors, agents,

publicists, readers, friends, relatives and observers kind enough to

share their opinions and recollections.
 
A book of this scope, covering

so many years, so many miles, and such a plethora of legal details,

would have been impossible without the gracious help I received from so

many.

I wish to thank the staff of District Attorney Lewis Slaton of Fulton

County, Georgia, particularly Investigators Don Stoop and Michelle

Berry, and Assistant District Attorneys Andy Weathers and Bill Akins,

the East Point, Georgia, Police Department, and law enforcement

personnel from Pike County and Forsyth County, Georgia.

Although there were as many points of view in this true-life saga as

colors in the rainbow and few participants agreed, nevertheless I

appreciated the time various family members and friends shared with me:

Colonel Clifford Radcliffe and Margureitte Radcliffe, Deborah and

Michael Alexander, Bill and Susan Alford, Courtney and Adam Alford, Tom

and Liz Allanson and J. C.

and Rena Jones.
 
Their perceptions added a great deal to the voluminous

public records and transcripts furnished by government officials in

Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. From all the

stories, each interwoven with the next, strand upon strand, emerged one

story, the final golden thread that became this book.

Life can sometimes be cold and lonely for a writer at work, and I thank

my backup people: My first reader, Gerry Brittingham, and my friend and

field assistant on this book, Donna Anders, for their help on the first

fledgling research and the roughest draft.

And, scattered from Massachusetts to Wyoming, from Michigan to Oregon,

in no particular order: Sophie Stackhouse, Laura, Rebecca, and Matthew

Harris, Leslie Rule, David Coughlan, Andrew Rule, Michael Rule, Marlene

Price, Bruce Sherles, Shirley and Bill Hickman, Lois Duncan, Fred and

Bernie McLean, Jeoff Robinson, Jay and Betty Jo Newell, Bill and

Maureen Woodcock, Martin and Lisa Woodcock and Don White (who enlarged

my office right over my head as I worked), Jennifer Gladwell, Edna

Buchanan of Miami Beach, Mike Bashey, Elida Vance, Nancy Hrynshyn, Jann

and Sid MacFarland and the houseboat gang, Ed Eaton, Betty May and Phil

Settecase, Verne Shangle, Sue and Bob Morrison, Ruthene Larson, Joan

and Jerry Kelly, Cherl Luxa, Ginger and Bill Clinton, Hope Yenko, Brian

Halquist, Dee Reed, Rose Mandelsberg-Weiss, Elaine and Wayne Dorman,

Dr. Peter J. Modde, Anne Jaeger, Marsha MacWillie, Jenny Everson, Dee

Grim, Mildred Yoacham, Johnny Bonds of the Harris County, Texas,

Prosecuting Attorney's Office, Dr. Martha Krenn, Lola Cunningham,

Joyce and Bill Johnson of Mukilteo, Don Wall, Luke and Nancy Fiorante,

M. L. Lyke and Susan Paynter, Joyce and Pierce Brooks, Sergeant Myra

Harmon and Sergeant Marsha Camp, Charlotte and Austin Seth, Geri and

Bill Swank of San Diego, Danny House and Karen Ritola.

To the enigmatic and arcane Northwest B. & M. Society, of which I am

proud to be a founding member: Jeannie Okimoto, Judine and Terry

Brooks, Ann Combs, John Saul, Margaret Chittenden, Michael Sack, Donna

Anders, Don and Carol McQuinn; and to the Pacific Northwest Writers'

Conference where every writer learns and grows.

To my Ohio relatives-descendants, as I am, of the late Albert Sherman

and Florence Stackhouse: Bertha and Bob Mowery (now of San Benito,

Texas), Lucetta Mae Bartley, Sherman Stackhouse, David Stackhouse and

Glenna jean Longwell, Neva Steed Jones, and my fellow author, James

Steed.

To my Michigan relatives-descendants, as I am, of the late Chris and

Anna Hansen: Emma McKenney, Chris and Linda McKenney, Freda and Bernie

Grunwald, Donna and Stuart Basom, Bruce and Diane Basom, Jan and Eby

Schubert, Karen and Jim Hudson, Jim and Mary Sampson, Maxine Hansen,

Christa Hansen, Terry Hansen, and Sara Jane and Larry Plushnik.

Almost two years ago, my editor, Frederic W. Hills, agreed with me that

this was a story worth exploring and he has cheered me on all the

way.

He and Burton Beals have helped me ' shape, trim, and improve every

chapter and have done so with the utmost tact, kindness, and

intelligence, never intruding on my own particular style.
 
Even when I

balked, I knew in my heart they were right.
 
To Daphne Bien, Fred

Hill's assistant, who left us just as we crossed the finish line, and

flew off to London.
 
How many of us will miss her!
 
Ed Sedarbaum and

Leslie Ellen handled the copyediting and found every comma, date and

clause I inadvertently put in the wrong place-or at the wrong time-(or

both) and I do appreciate it.
 
To Emily Remes, my legal angel, and to

the sales representatives who set out for the far corners of America,

carrying books, and came back, hopefully, empty-handed.

To my publicity team, Victoria Meyer and Joann Di Gennaro, and to the

"friends for a day"-my escorts on tour who always lead me patiently and

graciously around cities I have never seen before.

Again and again, to my much loved agents, Joan and Joe Foley.

Last of all, but truly most of all, I thank my readers.
 
You can never

know how much your letters mean to an author who has been chained to a

word processor for weeks on end.
 
Or how welcome your smiling faces and

supportive comments are when I am signing books in some mall,

somewhere.
 
You have given me that rarest of joys the chance to earn my

living doing something I really love.