To allow an injustice persist, for the innocent to remain in prison while the actual criminals remain free, is to embrace corruption at the expense of Democracy. It requires we sacrifice every moral stength we thought we had.
The Freeing of the Innocent is the obligation of everyone who is aware of their imprisonment and their innocence.
November 19, 2024
Justice & Outrage Shouldn’t Mix
But they do… too often. Yeah, yeah, I was going to post “Did They Promise You Paradise” but changed my mind and will address this aspect of our justice system, because it’s how we incarcerate the innocent while letting the real culprits, especially murderers, get clean away.
By now you’ve heard dozens if not hundreds of the thousands of cases where people have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, for decades. They are belatedly exonerated and everyone feels good about themselves. Applause, smiles. The exhausted glee of those who worked for months, but usually years, to free the innocent.
What we don’t see is the prosecution (except in rare cases) who mea culpa and apologize. The system just doesn’t work that way. The other thing we don’t discuss is how the real killer remained free, and is probably still free, while all this is ongoing. The system doesn’t want to look at themselves too closely.
They system is police/Law Enforcement and Prosecutors. We tend to look at them as guardians of our safety. We tend to not question what they tell us because of course, they are above us and therefore held to a higher standard.
But they aren’t. In fact, the good ones never hold the ones they know are bad, to any standard less it taint the entire herd. By their silence, they allow, even cover up the ‘bad apples’ in their own barrels.
We saw how Eddie Peltier’s murderers got clean away with it because they wore shields, badges and had connections with politically ambitious Attorney Generals and their lodge brothers who were judges. Eleven innocent men, all barely in their 20’s, were convicted on the most outrageously false “witness” statements, even as two of the witnesses who had been held in police custody, sat in the courtroom with black eyes, broken noses, broken arms, ribs and internal injuries. It was, they say, the FBI’s way of allowing James Yankton and his buddies to “get to the truth”.
A few years later, all but two convictions were overturned. Being as the majority were overturned, and their case was premised on ALL of them beating and chasing him, stomping him to death, how did the story hold up when the two people they refused to exonerate were from out of state and never knew him or had contact with him?
I’ll tell you. It was one of the most brutal crimes committed on the rez at the time. Eddie was beaten so badly, his own father couldn’t recognize him. And, this killers had dressed him in clothes that weren’t his—they belonged to one of the killers: Quentin Yankton, who was way taller, bigger than Eddie was and the clothes didn’t fit him.
The murder was so outrageous that ‘SOMEBODY HAD TO PAY’ which is a phrase you hear all the time when a crime so outrageous is discovered. The outrage drives the case in the public eye. When the murderers are the police and their family and friends, this sets in motion a need to find a scapegoat.
In Eddie’s murder it was the eleven, two of whom had been lured from out of state (Texas) on false pretext by a person who was forced to do it by James Yankton who happened to be Chief of Police during most of these outrageous crimes. Eddie’s murder was planned.
The prosecution aided and abetted the cover up by their conduct. Lynn Crooks, who had gained fame by wrongfully convicting Leonard Peltier, was riding a wave of celebrity when he worked with his team of FBI agents to convict the Eleven and to continue to imprison the last two, who were released years apart, with no logic behind their releases other than they wanted people to shut up about Eddie’s murder and quit pointing to the real killers.
The FBI relied on the one agent, Helleckson, who was a drunk and worse, and who was permanently posted on the rez to keep him out of the public eye. Abusive, bullying law enforcement, compromised FBI agent, an AG high on his own fumes and Judge Benson, who had bragged that he descended from Indian Fighters, and was a lodge brother of Lynn Crooks.
Oh, and since it all happened in Indian Country, on the rez, they could say anything they wanted because who ya gonna believe? A nobody Indian? Or that squeaky clean badge? It worked every time. “Somebody had to Pay!” and they picked the somebody (ies) and the press went along with it.
And it worked again when the badly decomposing body of Gilbert Fassett was found by a couple of berry pickers on hot summer afternoon. Clearly, viciously attacked with dozens of stab wounds and sexually mutilated by some creepy pervert, SOMEBODY HAD TO PAY.
And when the murderers, James Yankton and another BIA cop who helped to abduct Gilbert, and drove him to that location, then stabbed him, were pointed out by a witness, the FBI Agent, Helleckson reported that witness to the killers and the intimidations, threats, beatings and torture, threats to the family, all commenced. They would have to find someone else because the public outrage demanded “SOMEBODY” to pay.
So, using the standard outrage machine, the media, who trusted everything they were told by police was the absolute truth, stated they were looking for someone to come forward (Just not the witnesses who had already come forward and pointed to the BIA cops)… and eventually, they got one. Werner Kunkel.
Werner, just an average guy doing average things, apparently pissed off an ex girlfriend who had an ax to grind. He seemed like a nobody enough that they could pin this on him. His alibi was solid, but they pretended it didn’t exist. Of course you have to hide stuff, lie in court, but who are they going to believe? Some nobody guy or those well-dressed prosecutors who hang out with the FBI guy from the rez, and his pals?
Since they are all in the social circle of the judge, and since the media quoted every word they said because they had credibility because they had badges…
…Werner ended up in prison for the crime he had nothing to do with.
He’s still there. The witness to the real killing has been silenced and thrown in prison where he could suffer or die and no one would be any the wiser, and the alibi witness, confirmed by the Dept of the Army no less, is ignored. Can’t have that pesky alibi turning up and making all these quality people look bad, now can we? Isn’t that the reason the “nobodies” are picked as scapegoats to begin with? Credibility can surf over so much corruption, you barely smell the stink, and if you do, you never look at the source of the smell.
If there is a murder in Indian Country it will be investigated by the most corrupt-by-design law enforcement agency in the nation--- and that’s saying something from what we’ve all seen in the years, decades that followed.
Once you stir people up with outrage, you can lie to them with the most egregious even illogical lies, and they will follow you (if you are a person in authority) and never question any of it. You can, as Lynn Crooks well knows, convict a Ham Sandwich and brag about it, even gain accolades from it. Yeah, Crooks is dead now. If there is a hell, I sure hope he’s got a cell there. I hope it has his name on it.
Meanwhile, Werner is suffering the fate of a wrongly convicted man, who is subjected to physical and psychological torture by his sadistic captors. They had him scheduled to be released and deported to Germany as a way of getting him out of their hair because he won’t admit guilt, and they run the risk of the evidence and his alibi continuing to threaten their reputations. They had him scheduled to be deported and he gave away to his fellow prisoners, some of his treasures that helped him pass the time; an X-Box and games… a radio… small luxuries to us, but treasures to those cut off from the world.
And then, the day before he was to be released and deported, they ‘changed their minds’, and decided he would stay. All that eased his mind, he had given away. Now, just him and the cell. He has been thrown in solitary, served rotten food, had any and every kind of mental/psychological torture as well as physical neglect heaped on him while he’s hidden away from public view.
His attorney is working for The Innocence Project, but that funding is limited (I suggest everyone who can, make a donation to The Innocence Project. Someday it might be you or someone you love, fighting for their freedom) and that attorney is fighting the whole corrupt system. Hardly a fair fight. They have the public outrage on their side: “SOMEBODY HAS TO PAY” which typically means: “Anybody”, and The Public doesn’t like to admit they’ve been taken, that they were fooled, that the people they trusted as protectors of their safety & security, were in fact, the ones inflicting both the crimes and the outrage on them.
There was a series of articles in the Fargo Forum recently, by Pat Springer, who very much opened up the whole moth eaten case and exposed it to the light of day. I would hope that would have made a difference.
I think it did. But that won’t matter unless everyone takes an interest in Justice. I hope to see people who carried their pitchforks and torches to support the outrage, light it up again and show their outrage to the system that has been protecting itself at the expense of not just the victims in Indian Country, not just the Victims in Spirit Lake Nation, but the entire state and nation as a whole, by their presenting false evidence, lies, counting on stereo-typing to generate both outrage at the crime, and then later, indifference to their victims of frame up, false conviction, wrongful imprisonment.
People should be angry that their trust in the system was betrayed, repeatedly. People should be angry that they were misled, their anger misdirected towards the innocent. That they were, by their trust in those who were supposed to protect our safety and security, fed outrage and aimed at the innocent while the guilty were never punished. The guilty are still free. Gilbert is still dead. Werner is still in prison.
Oh, one more thing: In case you were not a regular reader of the Restless Spirit Blog back in the day, you might have missed the detail about Gilbert Fassett being sexually mutilated and how, among other evidence, I know it was James Yankton’s doing: When he was Head of Security at the Casino, a job he was gifted after his corruption and abuse became impossible to justify or cover up as Chief of police, he had a little trophy he liked to keep on the shelf: In a jar, a scrotum, the penis and testicles, pickled and on display. I knew about that jar years before I knew about Gilbert’s murder & mutilation. I had heard about it from people who were shown it, and who were appalled. So, yeah, he did it. Wouldn’t surprise me if he still had it. Trophies are hard to let go of.
So, with all the outrage going on around the nation, pay attention to what is going on, who is doing it, why they are doing it, and know the truth when you hear it. Question the lies, especially by those in positions of authority. Authority should not be instant credibility.
Don’t be afraid to realize you were fooled. They’ve been at that game longer than any of us have been alive. Speak up and speak out.
And, if you are afraid of what’s coming at us on a national level, just know that it’s all rooted in local support for corruption. Start there. Start taking bites out of the system that is set to betray us once again and forever. Free an innocent man and you begin to free yourselves, each other, all of us.
Tolerating corruption and injustice brought us to this circus. It only gets worse if we let it. Understand that absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. Those with power and authority should always be questioned, and the answers better be the truth, or the Outrage will grow.
Take care of one another. That includes those you never knew about until now.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
November 4, 2024
What’s In The Box?
Some memories never really leave. They may fade around the edges, but they still hold that crisp, stabbing at the heart, helplessness in form and shadow.
Sixty years ago, and the worst part is, I understood all of it. Like each character circled around me, displaying their wounds, their fears, their ugliness, their violence, their anger, their terror… all whirling around me. I knew them all and I was helpless to stop any of it because I was just a kid, working behind a snack bar counter at my high school, seeing a disturbance 100 feet in the distance, hearing an anguished scream.
The rest was muffled because of distance, glass, and the typical rattle of six windows serving 600-900 hungry students. I could see one of the boys gleefully running around with a box he had just taken away from another boy. He was gleefully laughing, and showing off the contents, like he had captured a trophy.
The boy he had knocked down and stolen it from was on his knees, making the only sound any of us had ever heard from him, a wail of anguish. The usual stir of students gathering to witness the scene crowded out my view.
I wouldn’t learn until the next day what had happened.
Flashback:
In my freshman year, before I worked full-time in the snack bar, I too, milled around the quad at snack break, with my friends and classmates. We all sort of had our circles, groups, cliques. I despised cliques. They were snobby girls, stuck up, slaves to each other’s opinions.
And there were loners who sort of waltzed around, occasionally nodding or waving to other loaners. And there were others who would never ‘fit’ in even as a loner. They had deficits; physical, mental. They looked different, moved different and sounded different. There was this one kid who was like that. He was small in stature, had thin hair, the typical teenage acne, but in his case it was ravaging his complexion. You didn’t have to look too close to see he was badly scarred either from surgeries or fire or both. He dragged one foot when he shuffled. He carried a shoe box, all the time.
He would shuffle around the gathering circles, holding the shoe box in front of him, towards people who were speaking, and then he’d pull it away, make mumbling noises, and repeat the process over and over again.
He never bothered anybody. He never hurt anybody. Everybody knew he was different, that he had struggles. If you tried to talk to him he’d hunch over and withdraw, making those little grunting noises. We figured he had no words.
There was another type in that school, that year. The kind you find in every school, everywhere. The kind who look for victims to torment so they can feel big about themselves. The bullies. They have deficits of their own, they just don’t show as scarred skin, shuffling walk, a foot that drags, but they are by every measure, far uglier.
Flash Forward:
It’s the day after that scream, that awful cry that cut through the chill fall air and broke the heart of everyone who heard it. The bully, a kid fifty pounds heavier than the boy with the box, decided that he would claim the prize and find out what was in that box.
He had ripped it out of the hands of the boy who had carried it all the time. Opened it up. It was a tape recorder. He had his prize. He was holding it over his head as the smaller boy awkwardly and futilely tried to reach up and retrieve it. It held his secrets. All of them.
The bully hit PLAY, and there were, on that recorder, snippets of conversations the kid had been gleaning from his touring around various circles. Interspersed in those conversations were little sounds of grunts, and half chuckles.
“Hey! The Weirdo is pretending he’s having conversations with everyone!”
The pain of humiliation was too much for that young man. All he ever wanted was to belong. If he couldn’t belong, he could pretend he belonged. And now, his biggest private secret was being broadcast by a bully, someone he had never crossed in any way. A bully starved for self-esteem, needing attention more desperately than the kid with the box.
It was all over school that next day. The bully, the humiliated victim. The victim who went home that day and killed himself. A kid who had massive struggles, who bothered no one, who just wanted to feel like he belonged in the human race, was consumed by the vicious hunger and insecurity of the bully who needed to make himself feel powerful by attacking the most powerless kid on campus. A need he couldn’t control.
He proved himself to be the smallest and the most despised, in that one act of him parading around with the tape recorder over his head, gleefully laughing at the pain and anguish he was causing in a soul who already had a lifetime of pain and anguish.
It Didn’t End There
The day after the news of the suicide, there was a bloody mess in the boy’s bathroom. Either the varsity or JVs had cornered the bully and beat the crap out of him, left him on the floor, pissing himself.
There was at that time, kids who cheered that on.
Served him right.
He got what he deserved!
That’ll teach him…
Ugliness became more ugliness and at the time it was like a ball of violence and darkness had claimed people I knew. Violation and violence was answered with more violation and violence.
The guys who assaulted the bully being cheered on were in so many ways indistinguishable from the bully who pranced around with the tape recorder as a trophy. His humiliation of the kid who killed himself that night, was in his mind, achievement. The guys who ganged up on the bully and beat him to a pulp, thought that was their achievement.
None of this would bring back the son to his grieving parents. None of this accomplished anything except more violence. None of this made any of them bigger or better. It just made all of them, all of us who knew all of them, lesser than we wanted to be.
The bully should’ve been shunned. He too was just a kid. His meanness came from weakness and insecurity. He too, just wanted to belong but he didn’t know how. He didn’t even have a box where he could pretend or practice belonging.
I don’t know how or even if the bully ever came to grips with the damage he had done to his victim, and the family that loved him.
I do know that he became a victim. I don’t think he learned kindness or compassion from getting the crap knocked out of him, leaving him a bloody mess lying on the hard tile floor of the boy’s bathroom, in a puddle of his own urine.
Today
Not much has changed in how we teach social skills to kids. We expose them to violence and tell them to get used to it. What do we think they will become? What are their choices? Expect and accept abuse and violence, or become abusive and violent?
This behavior carries over into adulthood. This is what becomes of hopes and dreams of the talented, the compassionate, the creative… we leave little room for anything else. We lose far too many, too young because they don’t really fit in and they don’t know how. They’ve had no practice.
There is another subset that grows out of this bully-victim dynamic: The enabler. They feel weak. They want to be safe. They are the ones who look up to the bullies. They do the bidding of the bullies. They feel that the bully will protect them. They like it when people are intimidated by their bad behavior, their threats. They tell themselves they aren’t bad guys. They’re only doing what they are told to do.
They are afraid in all directions: They are always afraid the bully will turn on them if they displease him. They continue to do the dirty work for the bully, the ‘wet work’ if you will, because they feel they are protected by a powerful association, their proximity to the bully.
They don’t trust those with whom they associate because they know they are all the same. They may swagger and bluster, commit crimes together, but they know that underneath it all, they will happily knock each other down if the bully mentions he is displeased.
They are afraid of the bully and of each other. They keep secrets from each other. They never fully trust each other. They are all working in the service of someone, something violent and ugly.
The ride gets old after awhile. All bullies are unstable. Their greatest power is the illusion of power. To that end, they will demonstrate by sacrificing one of their own, just to keep the others in line. The suspicions grow. The fear grows.
They get louder and more violent, drunk on the moment where they feel they are part of the mob and the mob is powerful… but they fear everyone in that mob. They fear anyone that has the strength to walk away from that mob.
Anyone who has the courage to say “Enough!” and who walks away knowing that their entire social circle, the one place they felt like they belonged, and were safe, becomes a threat to everyone in that circle. Why?
Because walking away from the escalating violence, the cycle of abuse, and of lying to themselves just to stay connected with “friends” is a threat because the truth of what it all is, what it has become, the ugliness they have to commit and recommit to every day, becomes obvious to the whole.
People who can stop lying to themselves, and walk away from the blood on the tile floor, and say “No More”, can set a domino cascade that will not fully end the bully and his mobs, but will weaken them until it is obvious to everyone, even those who lie to themselves, that he is not worth what they have become. They will realize they are better than they have been. That what they thought was a righteous mission, became a mindless escalating swarm of ugliness.
There are people who need the bully to maintain because they fancy themselves as able to direct despair in directions that profit them. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Without the despair, the fear, the chaos, they have nothing. They have nothing to contribute to society. They would be without a group, a circle or a clique. Nodding and waving to others wandering out there, won’t pay the bills. They never developed compassion or empathy. There is an entire eco system around bullies.
But even bullies get old. They get paranoid. They don’t trust anyone. They become fearful. They know they have allegiance and loyalty from those who do their bidding, but they don’t have respect. They have fear, and that’s not the same thing. Fear instead of respect or is something that can backfire in a flash. So, the bully doesn’t trust anyone that follows them, loves them or adores them because he doesn’t respect them. He knows he’s a fake and he knows they know it, but they’re just too weak to be trusted. Strong people can’t be trusted because you can’t make them fear you.
Bullies are scared shitless and no amount of adoration or reassurance can soothe them. They come undone. People who walk away will say: “He’s changed”. He hasn’t. They never change, they just get worse at sustaining the illusion. As it starts to crumble, the bullies become more and more extreme.
It's that way on the rez with Yankton Boys slithering around in their own feces, fighting with each other, trusting no one, living in fear that those who were once on their side will sell them out; worried that those they’ve blackmailed will come after them; and spooked by the ghosts of everyone they’ve killed.
They did none of it alone. They had help in several directions for each and every murder they committed. All the money they stole, all the women, girls and little boys that they raped, abused, destroyed—all of that is coming back to haunt them. And even the ghosts of the departed are tormenting them.
I wanted to see them pay the price for what they’ve done. I wanted them to know suffering. All I ever wished for them was that they lived a long, very long life. Old age will level a bully in ways nothing else can.
Thing is, if they confessed their crimes, came clean, what time is left on this earthly plane would be easier for them. Even prison would’ve kept them out of the living hell they created for themselves and their families. They know what’s waiting for them on the other side. Imagine being in that much pain and stink, wallowing in their own filth, weak, vulnerable, paranoid, trusting no one--- and afraid to die?
It's in our society, from top to bottom. Bullies calling for violence, not accepting a fair and free election, swaying a mob devoted to him with lies. People who never really knew what he was, and who never questioned the lies that embraced them, made them feel like they belonged… like only the bully could be trusted, even as thousands died. A man who has never told the truth in his life, coddled for his wealth, faking every emotion, coming unraveled before their eyes.
They don’t want to see it. They don’t want to believe it. They have built their entire identity around his lies, his meanness, and laughed when he attacked people who were handicapped, gleefully excelling in cruelty to the most vulnerable, taking children, infants from their mother’s breast, putting them in cages—children! And tearing up the paperwork that would have allowed families to reunite.
Destroying the system that was built to process immigrants, asylum seekers and turn away those who did not belong. This system was more and more broken because politics made the border an issue where people who hear “Caravan!” and “Invasion!” and fake fear over children. The system that was starved of federal judges for decades as budgets for immigration were cut over and over again, making the orderly processing impossible. He proved he didn’t want this ‘issue’ to go away when he demanded that the Border Bill, the strictest and most conservative ever written, by his team, Republicans, that would fund more agents, more courts and streamline the system, he demanded that those who wrote the bill vote against it because without the fear of the border that they all played on, he would have nothing to stir his crowds. He made it worse so he could scare people into believing him. He fixed nothing. Ever.
And people, if you don’t know what tariffs are, you better learn. It will collapse our economy. No country can make another country pay anything. Tariffs are imposed when the goods arrive. The cost is on the consumer. He’s literally telling people he’s going to raise their cost of living, while denying that’s what will happen. He’s not a smart man, but he knows how to convince people, many smarter than he is, that he isn’t saying what he is saying.
I think people know. I think they’re just pretending to believe because they don’t want to step out of their circle. It’s a cold world out there. Those who do step out have to make all new connections in society. Many have forgotten how.
Meanwhile, the good we could do in this world, the good we used to do, is just a memory, fading.
Kids today don’t know what dial tone is. They’ve never heard it. They don’t know that the Americans used to be the first to show up at any natural disaster in the world, bringing Aid, helping people recover. They’ve never seen it. We aren’t that anymore.
We used to express our strength in the world by our compassion. Now, we just bomb them.
It would be different if we showed compassion at home, but we don’t. We compete for and against the most abusive, in hopes of salvaging what’s left of our democracy.
There will come a time when kids won’t know what democracy is or ever was, because they never heard it or saw it or lived it.
We incarcerate more people than any other country. Are we that bad? Or is there profit to be made in mass incarceration? When prisons became privately contracted, our incarceration rates jumped, and we should be ashamed.
We imprison the innocent for decades and pat ourselves on the back when we get them freed, most of their life gone from them. Shame on us.
We are a nation primed for bullies and we never saw it coming.
We think billionaires are hard working. They are not. No one ‘earns’ a billion dollars. The poor work harder than anyone else Those without a home work harder just to find a place to lay their head at night, than the guy who parties on his yachts, and doesn’t pay taxes. Why do we admire wealth and not hard work?
As a society, we have lost our way. It’s time we apply ourselves to fixing that. It starts with the kids.
Teach them to seek the truth, speak the truth and to not be afraid of transitions in this life. To not be afraid of those whose struggles are different from their own. They won’t have a perfect life, no one does. But they will have a better life, and friends they don’t have to be afraid of.
When you go by that house on the Rez that stinks to high heaven, yell “Confess!” Let the bullies know that even though the innocent are in prison for their crimes, you know and so does everyone else. That will tell them and you that the bullies don’t have you as an accomplice by your silence.
You know where to find me.
Your Worst Day? Or Luckiest Day? 101
Depends on how you look at things whether you are having the most unlucky day possible or you are lucky beyond all chance and happenstance. If you see yourself as unlucky, you are a victim and you see no way out. The universe has conspired to take a big dump on you.
If, even in the middle of a massive struggle, facing obstacles that are overwhelming, you find a way to see even one fortunate aspect, chances are you are going to not only overcome that which is challenging you, but you’re going to be able to overcome the next and the next.
The Trick to all of this is to never EVER ask: “What else can go wrong?” Because it seems the Universe does have a ready answer for that and it will immediately appear on top of the pile you are currently facing. That’s just one of my cosmic observations.
What follows is an absolutely true story.
I was on Highway 101 on my way south to LA or San Diego... this was in 1980 or so, and the sun was just getting low on the horizon. I was on a long stretch between Santa Maria and Santa Barbara. There was nothing, no gas stations, no houses, nothing on this stretch for at least 20 miles. This stretch had a bad reputation. It’s where people went missing, mostly girls and women. I knew that because I had done work related to various law enforcement in the region. Stuff that never makes the news or even the papers because they were ‘nobodies’ and probably led a lifestyle that made their disappearance, rape or murder, a known risk. An attitude that sadly, persists today in too many regions.
It was early fall from what I recall, and I had my dog in the back of my truck when I saw it. A black car, in the opposite lanes (northbound), completely wrecked and planted into the side of the ditch. I could tell by its trail of destruction that either the front axle or the A-Frame had broken. Debris trailed behind it to tell the tale.
It had happened awhile earlier because no one was around. If there had been any injuries, they were already scooped up and gone. I wondered why no one called for a tow truck yet.
And then I saw her, walking back to the direction she had come from. A woman on foot. She had made it already about 2 miles. She would have to go another twenty in that direction, my direction, if she was going to make it. If the sun went down, and it almost was, she would not make it.
I drove a little further until I came to a cut across that the Highway Patrol uses to flip a U-turn and chase speeders. (Don’t ask me how I knew where that was, ok?)
I knew someone had to pick her up, or someone WOULD pick her up. I had seen too many police reports and I knew, I had to be the one to pick her up. I flipped the U-turn and headed back to where she was walking. I pulled over and got out so she could see I was a woman, not a threat. Hell, I only weighed 110 pounds soaking wet with my boots on.
She was crying, tired and yes, that was her car. This was the worst day of her life.
I told her that the direction she was walking was another 20 miles, but northbound was only 15 miles to Santa Maria and we could get help for her there. Ok, Santa Maria it was. She told me her name (can’t remember now) and how her car crashed. She had no injuries. Just really mad and upset.
She said she had a friend in Santa Maria who was a mechanic and he had a tow truck, but that he was sick, running a high fever. Maybe she could call him and he’d know someone who could come and rescue her and her car?
She had no money. Not a dime. Her last dollar had gone into her gas tank.
She had a lot of complaints about her life in general and I listened. It’s what you do when someone just escaped a traumatic event. We got to the truck stop and I bought her a meal. She made a phone call from the pay phone (remember those?) on the quarter that I gave her. Her friend who was really sick had agreed to come and get her himself. What a guy!
Still complaining as she picked up her French fries and dunked them into the gravy, she was on a downward pity spiral about how unlucky she was.
“Today is the luckiest Day of your LIFE.” I told her.
“You don’t know…” she started to get back into the pity parade of woes.
“No, m’dear, YOU don’t know. Let me explain to you your good fortune.”
And I began: “Your car is poorly maintained but it is the best you can do and it wrecked, but you are completely uninjured. This happened on a stretch of road we call “Blood Alley” because women and girls disappear from here all the time. Sometimes we find their remains, sometimes we never know what happened to them. You got picked up, as the sun was going down, by a woman who altered her travel southward to do a U-turn and get you before something bad got you. You have no money, but you are eating a full meal. You have no money, but you have a friend who, sick as he is, is coming to your rescue and will tow your car and fix your car for you. This is the luckiest day of your life and if you can’t see that, you will never be able to see your way out of any problem, and trust me, there are more problems ahead. Life builds us one problem at a time.”
She stopped, stared for a minute at that fry dripping with gravy, the vegetables and the chicken on her plate… and she looked up at me. It was like a light washed over her. Her shoulders squared up, her chin lifted.
“I see it now,” she said. “I have so much going for me.” And then the part that told me she got it: “It took something like this for me to realize I’m not an accident.”
She was connecting. We were strangers to one another, but I was able to toss her a lifeline and get her into a place of safety. I knew she was truly safe when I saw she realized it. That told me she was going to solve her problem(s) by seeing what was around her that was helping her, and how she could help herself.
That’s when I felt good about it. Yes, I would be late getting to my destination, but that wasn’t the most important thing in front of me in that moment when I saw a stranger who was in danger, and I did what I could to change that. I was there and I was able, and I chose to help. And it mattered.
We both got something out of that meeting. She learned to quit amplifying the negative and find a way to help herself. I got to connect to another Human Being in a world where we are too often told to only look out for ourself, and that deprives us of the rush of energy that comes when instead of ignoring others, we connect and that sense of being fully Human and part of this world, with a purpose to other Human Beings… a feeling that is hard to describe but which is far and away better than any high from any drug.
We both felt better about the day by the time dinner was finished. Her friend came in and sat across the table. “Well, considering what happened, you look pretty good!” he said.
“I’m lucky to have friends like you.” She said to him. “And I caught a break today.”
I left as they left. I again went North. I was going to be soooo late.
The End
I never kept in touch. We didn’t exchange information. I got to vanish into the setting sun, counting my blessings that I had a reliable vehicle, a good dog, and I had within me, the means to help another Human Being. Good fortune, I have always believed, is meant to be shared where it is needed, and where you can.
And that’s where you come in. You, reading this. You who don’t have enough to make your rent or can’t buy what you need for yourself and your kids. There is something you can do. It won’t even take you out of your way.
You can get involved in Werner Kunkel’s case. You can write a letter, send an email, or even a postcard to the USAG’s office and tell them to re-open the investigation into the killing of Gilbert Fassett. Tell them that The Fargo Forum did a series of articles that they need to examine and from that, realize that they have the wrong man in prison. That the corruption that preceded them at their agency helped to put him in prison, and doing so left a serial killers free to terrorize their community.
Lynn Crooks is dead now. May he burn in hell. He knew he was railroading the innocent when his team covered up the evidence of Yanktons and their accomplices, and the FBI beat and tortured people to force them to perjure themselves in case after case where Yanktons did the killing and the innocent were blamed, convicted and sent to prison. He abused the power of his office and it is sickening the way he is being lionized as if he was a defender of the People. He was a tool.
But let us not speak ill of the dead. You don’t have to go there. But do write, phone, email everyone in every office that you can, and urge them to reopen this case and give Werner Kunkel a new trial.
Werner has been tortured in prison. He has been abused and those who put him there know he is innocent, but they are too cowardly to step up and do the right thing. There are a lot of cowards in this world. Most of them have jobs that make them weaker so they don’t even speak up. They don’t even prevent abuse.
I don’t know how they live with themselves. I’m guessing they do a lot of drugs and alcohol to try and forget what they have become. Or to try and reach that high they once had when they helped out another person and made a difference in their life, but now they just drive on by.
“Not my problem” they tell themselves. But it is their problem. It’s all of our problem. Because we are aware of it. We know what can happen. It is up to us to make it stop, or to stop it from becoming even worse.
You know who thinks they are lucky? Werner. He’s been through hell. He’s been tortured by those in power, physically and psychologically, for their amusement. But complete strangers have stepped up, reached out, and connected with him.
He knows he is not an accident in this world. That he is part of what connects all of us.
You may have to do a U-turn on what you think the world is and your place in it, but you will know, when you do it, that it was worth it and you are better off for it.
You will have made the world a little better, a little brighter, for someone you may never meet in this life. You are the one. We are the many. We are connected by this simple act of getting involved.
You know where to find me.
Years later I started hearing stories about a man named Gilbert Fassett, his decomposing body was found by a couple of berry pickers on the hill, an elder and his nephew.
There were some who wrote to me to try and explain why such a terrible, may horrific mutilation was done to a man: they were trying to say that Gilbert was a rapist, and that he had raped one of the Yankton girls. Even if that were true and I have my doubts, nothing would justify a cold blooded murder and sexual mutilation of another human being.
I really know nothing about Gilbert in his life, but I do know that his body was sexually mutilated it was found by two Berry pickers. And by no odd coincidence James Yankton had a trophy in a jar that he from time to time, shared, showed off to other people. I'm sure he enjoyed it when he was alone as well. He and his brothers and even some of the police that worked with him were that sick in the head.
The Fargo Forum newspaper, in a series of articles written by Patrick Springer went into great detail about how this crime was wrongfully attributed to Werner Kunkel, who to this day sits in prison for a crime he had nothing to do with, a crime he had no knowledge of, and that he is being mistreated buy those who are supposed to be law enforcement, supervisors, and prison guards who do the bidding of supervisors and enjoy it.
The torment is meant to break Werner. Just like the abuse that was heaped on to Richard La Fuente, And the eleven other innocent men who were falsely accused of Eddie Peltier’s murder. In that case it destroyed their lives, but they told the truth over and over and over again.
The psychological torture of Werner Kunkel as well as the physical and emotional abuse is something I feel should be looked into by an independent agency, not connected to the North Dakota USAG office. The USAG has much to lose if this case has looked at too closely. Prosecutorial misconduct may rear its ugly head.
That misconduct will tie into a pattern of misconduct that has been occurring in Indian Country, at least since Lynn Crooks held that office in rammed through convictions based on false statements, coerced by beatings, threats and torture of those who either knew nothing, or did not want to lie to convict the innocent.
In case you're wondering how we got here this is part of it. The corruption in Indian Country has been ongoing since inception. It has been profitable in both power and wealth to those who use it to their own ends.
I can point you to the villains, hand you evidence of their crimes, and even have you talk to witnesses, but unless you’ve looked under the hood, you’d think that’s all there is.
That the worst criminals on the rez are now functionally disabled, (I’m told two of the surviving brothers are double incontinent, crapping all over themselves and their house. That no one can stand to be downwind of them…) and you might have a sense of Justice being karmic in this case, and the danger having subsided substantially… and you’d be wrong.
If we learned anything from history of Spirit Lake Nation Reservation/Ft. Totten it is that the Yanktons were incredibly dumb and bumbling in their lives and especially in their crimes. I first thought they were too stupid to get away with the list of crimes they were connected to, and couldn’t figure out how they managed to get away with it all those decades.
And then I looked closer and deeper and I saw the bigger picture. I saw how the government played a key role in all of it. The government has never been the friend of Indian Country. They have taken control over all aspects of life on the Rez and that includes the court systems where there is no appeal regardless of how bizarre or wrong the judge or judgements are. It also includes the way business is conducted. The sale or leases of lands, resources is key.
Corporations, especially resource extraction corporations, don’t deal with the tribes directly—they deal with the BIA and other federal agencies. No one looks at the legitimacy of those contracts, and no one really knows who is getting what money. The Oil Companies (as an example) can distance themselves from the damage they do, or any scandals by pointing to the government and saying it’s all legit.
That’s only part of it.
Knowing what patches of land are going to be bought up by the oil companies for drilling, processing, and access (roads/pipelines) can make specific patches of land worth millions. If you file the paperwork for the right people, especially through shell corporations, you can move millions of dollars around and fuel an influence and money laundering scheme among politicians, law enforcement, people of influence, and no one even knows where to begin to look. Nor do they bother to try. It would upset too many apple carts.
Those patches of land can be sold and resold for increasing profits until they are finally bought or leased by the companies extracting the resources (Oil, timber, minerals, precious metals and water). That’s how people seem to acquire a whole lot of money and power, and it’s worth it to them to keep the corruption in place and the corrupt in power.
That’s just ONE aspect of corruption and the protection of the corrupt in Indian Country. There’s so much more. And it’s not just Spirit Lake, it’s the entire system, nation-wide.
Living in the midst of all this, are some of the bravest, kindest, most generous people you will ever meet if you ever get out there. They struggle against a system that is rigged against them, and the corruption that shadows every life out there, and they do it without help from the outside.
They do it against a backdrop of oppressive racism and stereotyping that has been in place since Contact.
If you’re wondering how some of the stupidest, meanest bullies seem to rise to power with impunity despite everyone knowing what they have done, look no further that the government that controls every aspect of their life, and has for the past 300 years.
You may not understand them and how they do it. You may not even be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys when you meet them. That’s the way the game is played.
Don’t assume the addict, the drunk, is the bad guy and don’t assume the guy with the $200 haircut and hand tailored suit is the good guy. Chances are you’d be wrong about both.
There are no “Perfect” victims here. No one is looking for your pity or sympathy. Just want you to gain a clearer vision and question what you hear or read from the government. Always look to see “who profits? Who benefits?” Most of all “Who has power?”
We all need to take a much closer look.
I knew when I started hearing about James Yankton displaying a jar with a pickled scrotum to impress people that it was a personal trophy from one of his kills. I just didn’t know who, for years.
Now I know: It was Gilbert Fassett. And the guy who was railroaded to take the fall, was Werner Kunkel. All the same key players were in place, just like they were when they railroaded 11-19 young men to take the fall for Eddie Peltier’s murder. And the same system, same key players that railroaded his cousin, Leonard Peltier, into a lifetime prison sentence for a murder he had nothing to do with.
Complete with experts who were not experts, science that was pure rubbish, debunked, but which the judges who probably have land holdings in shell corporations portfolios, keep them in prison to keep themselves living above their means, which no one ever looks into or even questions.
You can’t free the innocent without uncovering the corrupt and the corruption. They refuse to give an inch.
Or can you, me, all of us together, demand that trials be reviewed in an independent light, where the lies, evidence of innocence that was withheld, and the frauds that were promoted as experts, is all exposed, and the innocent freed? The corrupt can protect themselves from the one thing they fear most: Exposure, if they just get out of the way of Justice.
Or, we can expose the corruption, more and more at every level, and have people questioning every ruling, every sentence, every business deal, and how much behind the scenes chicanery has been at play.
One way is faster. It frees the innocent and quiets the questioning, lessens the exposures. The other way shatters confidence in the system, creates doubts about every political play, and reveals even more ugliness than the public can stand to know.
We like our fairy tales. We like our pillars of social circles to appear squeaky clean. We can only hold onto that illusion if cases brought and ruled upon with questionable, corrupted evidence or processes, are given new trials, fair trials.
One way or the other, it’s in motion. I’m here to be the narrator. We are all here, to bear witness.
You know where to find me.
~Cat