To Die For (36 page)

At learning that not everyone was convinced of her innocence, Dana cast herself as the virtuous inmate in a letter to Lisa Sloan about a mutual friend. “I need to forgive those who will turn against me, so I can go on and not hold bitterness in me. George is another Judas Iscariot, Lisa … The rest will catch up to him, so I worry not. I'm curious who is and who is not on my side.” She enlisted Lisa's help in convincing others of her innocence, sent them messages and told her what to say on her behalf.

Dana called a longtime nursing friend early in the morning to rant about Tom picking up her Cadillac, then wrote a letter apologizing, ranting some more and asking her to make some phone calls. She threatened to have Tom arrested, either forgetting or ignoring the fact that she and Tom owned the car jointly: “If [Tom] doesn't cooperate, he will be picked up and I will press charges … I can make trouble for him and I will if he fucks with me. I am done with him.… Snake!”

Aware that she had been in custody for two weeks, Dana made the bizarre observation that jail had been good for her and she had metamorphosed into a healthy, self-actualized being.

“This solitude in many ways has been good for me. I truly needed to take a look at my life and set priorities. It's 2 weeks today. I thank Jesus every day for my new self; for my ever increasing awareness of the beauty around me…”

Dana's next priority was maintaining her beauty regimen, particularly during her appearance in court for her preliminary hearing, which was scheduled for July. The other inmates helped Dana with jailhouse beauty secrets.

“Tonite I learned how to pluck my eyebrows by rolling them onto a new pencil eraser head, then you yank 'em,” she wrote, then expressed dismay at the effect the harsh shampoo was having on her perm. She said she would have to experiment with sponge rollers and setting gel to handle her “fright wig hair.” For court appearances, Dana learned she would wear her own clothes in front of the jury. She wanted to look good.

She humorously described the indignities of jail life, calling the weekly searches Toga Day because the inmates had to strip to their underwear, wrap themselves in the scratchy wool blankets and sit down while the deputies searched their cells, then they gave inmates cleaning materials to mop and scrub down their own toilets.

Once Dana got ahold of some lipstick, she planted lipstick kisses on her letters to Jim and scanned the Bible for romantic passages: “I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My lover is knocking…” On April 1, her mother's birthday, Dana told Jim that she used to celebrate it even after she died by going out and doing something fun. Because her mother died when Dana was a young teenager, she was never able to establish an adult relationship with her as she was able to do with her father. Beverly's charisma and a bit of a wild streak put verve in Dana's growing years, “camping, clamming at Pismo, best Halloween parties and best Xmases a poor family could have. She could make fun time out of just about anything.”

Despite her Bible study, Dana ranted about Tom: “FUCK FUCK FUCK HIM! In the Bible you're supposed to forgive those despite all reasons you should not. Well I'll forgive and forget him after the car is back!”

As more time passed, Dana's contact with the outside world slipped as she sank deeper into the doldrums and crudity of jail and learned to bottle her emotions. Dana revealed to Jim a heated exchange with another inmate, “a mouth, a self-centered manipulative & heartless little Bitch with a ‘C' This smartass bitch whips off with a real zinger comment … I felt stupid let such an immature, fuck for bucks bitch get my goat … Guess I have to get a prison mask … and act tough.” In still another incident, she described how the distribution of the newspaper was enough to spark an argument between twenty “hormonal women” in the day room.

*   *   *

It wasn't long before news of the female serial killer attracted attention among the thousands of male inmates in custody who sought to establish contact with a good-looking—and maybe dangerous—female compadre in a jail jumpsuit. A TV reporter who attended the proceedings reported speculation that the woman blowing kisses to Dana was her lesbian lover.

Dana's tone with Jim shifted noticeably as his refusal to visit her behind bars took its toll. She openly doubted whether he was as interested in a relationship as she was, but it appaved that she was primarily looking to see if he was still on her team. Never shy about asking for money, Dana started using her support system as a source of cash contributions to hire a private defense attorney and she continued to lean on her father and Jeri to help sell off her belongings, including the Cadillac. Despite the fact that she'd already promised proceeds from the sale of the Cadillac to pay for the damage to Jim's upholstery, Dana revealed just how far she was from reality, having no concept of how offended her victims' relatives would be at the idea of starting a defense fund for her.

Dear Dave [Dave Dresseker, a friend and realtor who sold Dana and Tom their Canyon Lake home]—

I just wanted to say thank you for the support you gave me in the press after my arrest. It
means alot!
Although I am not allowed to discuss my case, I will ask you to judge me from your heart. You know me pretty well and know I may have been depressed but not
that
depressed …

Dave later turned over excerpts of Dana's letter to the local newspaper, which printed excerpts. Outside of combatting sheer boredom, Dana's intention was clearly to continue accumulating supporters and keep them apprised, wisely keeping a human face on what the newspapers were calling a “rare” female serial killer. But she had no idea that she had unintentionally sabotaged a potential defense—perhaps her only defense—of her crimes by self-evaluating her mental state at the time of the crimes by telling Dresseker she was “not
that
depressed.”

As the days passed, Dana's emotions rode roller-coaster highs and lows. She expressed her undying love for Jim and demanded that he do the same, allowing him scant time to absorb the shocking news that she had secretly been committing crimes. Although he accepted her collect calls from jail, Jim had not written to Dana and couldn't bring himself to visit her. While Dana had quickly adapted to her surroundings, Jim needed some space in their relationship, but his distant behavior triggered her panic button. “I've never felt so desperate in my life … [Jim's failure to visit her] fucking hurts.” In letter after letter, Dana pushed Jim, demanded affection, insisted that he help her find a lawyer, asked him to decide—now—whether he loved her and berated him for not somehow divining her distress signals before her arrest.

With her emotions in high gear, Dana offered Jim a variety of reasons why he couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't want to visit: He was angry and didn't want to come to jail and have an argument; he was avoiding her because it was painful; he blamed himself for not “seeing her distress signals. Is this a slow painful break-up or are you really trying to heal yourself so that you can help me, too?”

Dana created a questionnaire—like a relationship quiz in a women's magazine—that included an indirect marriage proposal. But instead of waiting for Jim's answers, she answered her own questions the way she believed that he would, claiming that she was refraining from “pushing” him.

*   *   *

Dissatisfied with Sachs, her county-supplied attorney, Dana's other obsession was to hire a lawyer. She wielded a multi-pronged hammer—whining, familial guilt, personal expressions of innocence, and outright begging—to convince her father and Jeri to fund a “real” lawyer. While she was insistent and demanding, the reality that she was headed for prison appeared to be settling in. But first, she asked that the financial arrangements be adjusted. She put a copy of the commissary rules into the same envelope.

“Mom + Dad—I CANNOT handle this place for years!” Dana pleaded, acknowledging that the sooner she went to prison, the sooner she could take courses, exercise, and see visitors without a glass partition. Her desperation climbed and assumed an adolescent whine, reminding her father that she would work to pay him back and that she always kept her word. The tone changed again, as Dana pulled out the stops and used her last argument—that she was innocent.

“Please don't let me rot here, please … I won't last long here … I am not a murderer! HELP ME DAD And Jeri. I'm flat out begging you both…”

As her father and Jeri chewed over a response, Dana delivered more “to do” lists to Jim over the disposition of the Cadillac and other possessions as her moods went sharply up and down and up again. After Dana talked to Jason on the phone, her feelings soared, but sank into dark anger after Jim finally unloaded his anger on her, blaming her for not even considering how her actions would hurt him and, particularly, Jason. In letters scrawled with giant letters and peppered with Bible quotes, Dana blared that she was “FUCKIN SORRY!!!” blamed the bankruptcy, being fired, her marriage with Tom—all of the usual suspects—and begged for reconciliation. “Don't ditch me, Jim, please. I'm fucking begging you on my hands + knees.” But in her next letter, she pointed a finger at Jim for being so “self centered” that he didn't see she was troubled. “I needed YOUR help—you didn't see it, so I fucked up in a way I'll regret the rest of my life … Was I just a housekeeper—cook—babysitter—occasional fuck or what? You tell me. Yes you say you love me—now show it. I hope your balls get bigger than your anger and you come face me. WELL…?”

By the next day, her anger apparently exorcised, Dana returned to the saucy flirt Jim fell in love with. Writing as she sat and patiently waited for the twice-weekly underwear, sock N shirt delivery and playfully criticizing the delivery of new jail jumpsuits once a week. “Rank—Oh! You know what a trauma that is to this laundry queen.”…

Dana primly noted she turned up her nose on the carbo-heavy jail chow in favor of noodles, fruits, and vegetables, but sorely missed smoking cigarettes. And sex. She whisked away the angst and anxiety of her previous letters with a light-hearted proposal, making it clear that a marriage of convenience would satisfy her—as long as they made use of the conjugal visit trailer. “You don't have to love me, I just want your body. I had to ask. You think I'm joking, don't you? NOT!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1994

As Dana faced arraignment, her anxiety increased over her desire to have a personal attorney, her relationship with Jim, support from her former friends and the disposition of her property. When Dana's hysterical letter did not convince her father and Jeri to open their pocketbooks to fund a personal attorney, Dana wrote to Jeri on April 8, the day of her arraignment, hoping to convince her to sell the condo that Norma lived in and use the proceeds for the private attorney's fee, using the argument that “we are all family.” But Dana's efforts more closely resemble that of a brazen killer taunting a grieving relative, coupled by an ineffective stab in using guilt over Dana's inability to get along with her former step-mother, Yvonne, whom she only lived with for a scant two years.

At this point, Dana had no idea that Jeri was responsible for identifying her to the police. It was not entertaining thoughts of Dana's innocence. Dana had interviewed a private attorney who agreed to accept Norma's now-vacant Canyon Lake condo as payment in full and seemed miffed that Russell had told her that it wouldn't sell. Dana pressed them, stopping short of ordering them to deed it over. “I was under the impression you weren't gonna make any money on it anyway—so I don't understand the problem here. I thought we were
all
family here.” Dana made the uneasy link of family ties to the loosening of purse strings by comparing her dislike of Russell's second wife, Yvonne, with her acceptance of Jeri as she would her own mother, “so this issue on money really hurts. Jeri, this is my life we're talking about.”

Dana included a list of problems, including a change to a vegetarian diet and a visit from her chiropractor.

Dana hoped to elicit support from employees at her hair salon in Canyon Lake, asking them to “judge me from your hearts and not the news.” But she covered herself by saying that if they had already “written me off, well I forgive you. I love you no matter what … I can only hope you are behind me.”

Dana's letters to Jim took a pleading as well as a challenging tone: “I pray for a chance to rebuild what I have destroyed. Do you have it in your heart to pray for me too? It would help.” Dana delighted in hearing that her father “put out an arrest warrant” for Tom. “Tom in jail, YES!! Finally vindicating—for the fuck-wad of my life! Spineless FUCK! Not very Christian I admit, but feels GREAT! I prayed and let God decide what was best and had actually kissed off the Cadi…”

Seeking a creative outlet, Dana began drawing on envelopes to Jim and her relatives using paints cobbled together from lipstick, the candy coating from M&M's, Kool-Aid, jail-issue blue eye shadow, pencil lead and baby powder. Her primary subject was clowns, and the way she portrayed their facial expressions usually reflected her own moods. When cheerful, her clowns bore garish smiling faces and when she was upset, the clowns turned grotesque, with jagged teeth and heavy-lidded, bloodshot eyes. Dana's drawings also included clown reptiles, clown snakes and clown fish. For Jason, she drew Batman. Enamored of her own artistic abilities, Dana instructed Russell and Jeri to save her envelopes.

Still without her vegetarian diet and needing a doctor visit for her back, Dana griped to Jim that she felt ignored. The desert heat was pounding on her “concrete condo” and she bemoaned the stifling heat and lack of circulation. Again and again, she begged him to visit.

Jeri, answering Dana's request for money to hire an attorney, typed out a note reminding Dana that Russell had already sold half his stock to finance her wedding and that the Canyon Lake condo wouldn't sell because “no one wants to live in a house where such a horrible event occurred.” She asked Dana to cooperate with her lawyer and said they were supporting her by handling her personal affairs, like selling her wedding set, then mentioned that Russell's health had been on a downhill slide since her arrest.