To Die For (39 page)

Having heard a tidbit about Social Security Income, Dana implored her father and Jeri to get her an application so she could receive the checks, believing that stating she is an alcoholic qualified her for the program, even though someone else would have to receive the payments. She continued to pester her father to write a letter to the jail requesting a vegetarian diet. “I feel physically ill and need it. I am continuing to throw up on this regular diet they are sending me. Other people here got court orders for veg diets I should be able to also! For example today all I've eaten is: 1 cheese sandwich, 1 apple, mashed potatoes, milk. No salad, no real veges!” Being in isolation prevented her from trading food from her tray with other inmates.

Dana's father and Jeri sent Dana “keep busy” material to amuse her while she was in isolation: a deck of cards and a book,
255 Ways to Play Solitaire.

As she approached a month and a half behind bars, some of Dana's friends—and old flames—contacted her. Rob Beaudry, her first longtime boyfriend, now married and a commercial pilot living in Northern California, wrote and Dana filled him in with her current propaganda. This time, she explained, she was in isolation because “they feel an inmate headed for state prison may try to make a name for themselves and stab me. All because of the press! I truly despise the media more than ever. Pump the negative. Ignore the truth.” She had harsh words for her brother Rick: “My psycho brother Rick wasted no time jumping into the lime light. Someone ought to take him to the vet for a doggie good-nite shot. He makes me sick.” Sky-diving friends she had not seen for many years came out of the woodwork to visit, write letters and express sympathy and shock at finding the beautiful, intrepid adventuress and queen of snappy comebacks behind bars. A surprise for Dana was finding another sky-diver also behind bars 250 miles to the north in San Luis Obispo County. When a mutual friend tracked him down, Dana wrote a letter expressing delight that one of their friends was showing support by visiting and writing cheerful letters. Dana cleverly created an atmosphere of kinship when there was none before. “You know, we were never that close. So her love and support is a surprise but very welcome. Gary, we come from such a special era ‘70s skydiviving' and there are only a handful of us left. I feel the bond is such that no matter what, we should keep the home fires lit.” She revealed that in her association with Rob, he'd talked her into ending two pregnancies, for which she never forgave him and chose not to marry him. “I wanted children—he didn't and that would have come between us eventually. Now I regret not keeping one of those babies.”

As Dana's relationship with Indio grew, Dana claimed to be perplexed by her break-up with Jim and portrayed herself in the most favorable light: “You know, I'm probably one of the easiest women to get along with. I'm very sporty and adventuresome. I cannot understand this man one bit. If the tables were turned, I'd sure as hell be here seeing him and trying to figure out what happened and how I could help. I love him that much, even as a friend…”

When Indio sent her a photo of himself—with tattoo-covered arms and long, straight black hair—Dana supplied him with a flattering verbal self-portrait and dropped hints about creating a relationship. “I'm a 36 yr old little girl wth a broken heart lost in a system that's hell bent to destroy her. I'm vulnerable and I think you know that. I like you alot and you're way sweet to me. Handle me with care, okay? That's all I ask. Mutual respect, and tenderness…” In a later letter, Dana ripped into him with a preachy lecture about his lifestyle of drug abuse that had put him behind bars for much of his adult life, a curious turnabout for Dana, who blamed alcohol abuse for her downward spiral and fought a drug habit in the months leading to her dismissal from the hospital. Dana constantly reminded Indio that she was “for real” and was completely open with him, but she apparently decided not to clue him in on her own substance abuse. “I guess I just have to face it—Drugs are your sport … There's so much more to life Indio—but if you want to pickle yourself through it—then that's your decision. I'd never be party to it though.”

She admitted finding it a relief to vent to him because he was a repeat customer of county jail. “My family and friends do their best to understand—but they don't really have a clue—you do. I must admit, I don't understand how you spent so much time in this system.” Dana wrote to her other friends that she enjoyed passing the time by exchanging letters with her friend, and taunted him in the same manner that someone would play with a toy just to see what it can do. “I re-named him ‘Kimo' short for ‘Kimosabe.' (The Indian of
The Lone Ranger.
) He sent me a photo and I swear he looks like an Indian. Long black hair to his waist, and that Aztec Indian face. He hasn't acknowledged his new name yet so I know it erks him—but he's a man and he'll get over it soon. They usuallly do right? HA HA HA.”

When Indio initiated a more intimate form of expression by way of exchanging “fantasies,” Dana put her foot down and said she was not into “smut.” But it was only a matter of time before Dana succumbed to Indio's advances and she soon became quite skilled at risque exchanges by mail and, later, full-blown sexual fantasies with other inmates.

Dana bemoaned the spotlight as a celebrity defendant, but while she said being in that role wounded her, she clearly took advantage of the intimidation factor inherent in being an accused serial killer. A young woman who'd read about Dana's case in the newspaper wrote to Dana asking rather innocuous questions about her arrest and the placement of her dogs when she was jailed. Dana fired off a quick letter asking her to come for a visit and ask her the same questions to her face. To Carrie Ann, Dana joked about the “dumb” questions and “weird mail” she received, admitting that a letter from this woman had disturbed her. “I refuse to answer strange mail anyway—but this one fried me. So I told her to come see me and ask those same questions to my face. That'll freak her out. Hopefully will shut her up.” She sent Carrie Ann a handwritten copy of “Contraband Dreams” in the same letter. To Lisa Sloan, Dana said the same letter made her feel “like a side show. She wrote me a letter that was kind of insulting.” Dana wrote out a copy of “Contraband Dreams” to Lisa, too. She complained about getting time in the recreation room at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m., but took advantage of the stationary bike and leg machine, then got her first drink of coffee since her confinement which gave her “a buzz. If I had a drink, I'd probably pass out.” With a melancholy tone, she told Jim that from her cell window, she had an unobstructed view of the seventh floor and located his house. She gave him a romantic picture of the soft, spring evening with clear skies and “the clouds right on top of the range.” Because she was surrounded by buildings downtown, she described watching the sun go down from a reflection in the widepaned glass of the County Administration Center.

When Dana finally got a vegetarian diet, she told Indio that she was eating too much and needed to lay off the chips so she wouldn't gain weight. “I'm drinking coffee again now that I get a good diet … I don't eat much because my metabolism is down from lack of exercise (aerobic) but what I eat is good. My face cleared up and I feel generally good … as one can expect here at the County Inn.”

Her plan to keep her weight down was temporarily foiled when her next-door neighbor, an inmate by the name of Bill Suff, gave Dana two packages of nutty fudge cookies. A long-time resident of the jail, Bill used his subscriptions to
People
and
TV Guide
to write out a weekly movie schedule for her. She recruited Indio to dig up the story on Bill. “I know his case is serious—but not sure about details and there's no way in hell I'm gonna ask—so try and find out for me. My dad about freaked when I told him who my neighbor was. I told him relax—we rarely ever actually see each other. I've only seen him twice in transport. The creepy thing is, he kind of looks like John Wayne Gacy's California cousin. EEEK!” Dana eventually learned that she and Bill had a lot in common: They were both accused serial killers. Bill had been a resident of the county jail for 2½ years awaiting trial on charges of murdering twelve prostitutes in the Riverside area and mutilating two of them by slicing off their breasts, which were never recovered. Dana found that Bill was also in solitary confinement in the adjoining cell and was so lonely that he was writing two novels and a cookbook. Dana and Bill struck up a friendship formed around their common interest in cooking. Because they could not see one another, Dana summoned Bill by pushing the cigarette lighter button. When the jail was first built in 1990, the cells were outfitted with electrical cigarette lighters similar to those found in cars, except that one had to insert the cigarette in order to light it. It wasn't long before smoking was banned in the jail and the lighters were disabled. Clever inmates found ways to wire the lighters to deliver electrical shocks. The disabled lighters in the cell Dana occupied still made a clicking noise which Bill was able to hear, and he would come to the wicket, the wide, narrow slot in the cell where the food trays slide in. She called the cigarette lighter her call button for Bill.

Dana did not know that Bill had been a county employee for many years and had traditionally participated in the annual chili cook-off, including the year the serial homicides occurred. That year, as always, sheriff's detectives and DA investigators, along with other employees, attended the event and tasted most of the concoctions in the finals, including Bill's, which was unanimously declared the winner for its tender meat and unusual flavor. It wasn't until weeks after his arrest that some of the detectives began to wonder about the ingredients in his chili, leaving some to wonder whether he had slipped breast tissue from his victims into his blue ribbon chili.

To Dana, Bill was just another person with whom to pass the time. One wonders whether it was mere coincidence that the two were housed smack next to one another or if jail authorities had a macabre sense of humor. Dana reported hearing part of a joking remark from a snickering guard: “I heard one of them say they put us together so we could mate and make … I didn't catch the rest—but I'm sure Suff heard it too. What complete assholes! Just goes to prove the mentality we're often spoke of. Most of the deputies are nice up here and polite—but every now and then we get a real weenie patrol.”

She and Bill shared a love of horror novels and exchanged Dean Koontz books. Despite their proximity, they were not allowed direct contact, so all of their correspondence went through the mail.

*   *   *

With access to a phone in her cell and no competition from other inmates, Dana patched things with Jim, even though she knew the relationship was doomed. She declared her love for him and hinted about a proposal, coming up with the novel idea that they use this time as a courtship because they hadn't dated before she left Tom for Jim. She told Jim that he had all she had ever wanted in a man, “but I was too fucked up to deal with it.” Dana said she realized that she had tossed aside their relationship for “a long road of hell and heartache,” but insisted that she would come around and was completely in love with him and wanted to be with him forever. “I'd asked you to marry me if I thought you would.” After sending “Contraband Dreams” around to all her friends, Dana finally sent Jim the poem she “dedicated” to him.

The longer Dana was in custody, the more her inmate friends were getting released after serving their time. She wrote a cheerful good-bye to a friend, putting the best face on her situation. “Dig this—they installed a pay phone
in
my room. Now all I need is a mirror and an appointment for a color weave & cut and I'll be stylin. Of course Rec time would be nice. When I told Jim they put a phone in my room, he asked me if they got tired of my shit. (I can nag.)”

After her May 20 appearance in court, her lawyer told her that her preliminary hearing wouldn't come for several weeks and her trial was not likely to occur that year. Dana realized that she wouldn't get any quicker results than from a private attorney and geared up for a longer stay in jail.

The weeks in jail didn't dampen her desire for her beauty treatments. She thought up a cockamamie scheme to somehow convince a top stylist from a nationally prominent, celebrity-studded Beverly Hills salon to drive 60 miles out to the decidedly un-hip county of Riverside to give her a haircut. “I'm gonna write the Jose Eber Salon and try to get someone out to cut my hair—I need it badly.” Sponge rollers and styling gel weren't doing much good because she didn't have a mirror to properly curl her hair. Dana also wanted a cut and color. The sergeant had promised to get her a mirror but the least they could do, she wrote, was “let me have a contact visit to get my hair cut.”

As time went by, her coterie of outside supporters dwindled and her in-custody cast of characters—and lingo—grew. There was Cha Chi, Killer, Snake Woman, Smokie and Pork Chop, who got into a fight with another inmate. “Hey how's it girl? Heard you and Alicia had a dance? What's up with that? Things are fine up here. No complaints. Just lonely. Write me about your dance and lock-down and I'll write you back…” In the meantime, Dana lost another “outside” friend, but tried to buckle down on the ones who remained while blaming it all on her alcoholism. “Can you imagine being
so
damn down that you can't help yourself?” Dana was careful to keep the relationship taut around her, making it clear that a “certain few” would be among the trusted, loyal friends in her inner circle, as if entrée were a privilege, and warned that their bond would be tested. “It is only gonna get uglier, Juli, and I need a certain few to count on—I can see how you will be one of those certain few.” Dana noted that her support group should keep in close touch with one another and asked Juli to write or call Jim and her parents and tell them how much they meant to her.