I was catching summer-camp tadpoles in glass jars and watching horses run down dirt roads the summer he murdered my Aunt Marilyn. I was nine years old. Aunt Marilyn was thirty-one. I remember her dark, shining hair and shy smile; tragically, I know more of her in death than in life.
On July 3, 1954, Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Sam stayed up watching a late movie on television called, “Strange Holiday,” with some dinner guests — a couple from down the road. Uncle Sam, exhausted after doctoring people all day at Bay View Hospital, fell asleep on the daybed during the movie, and Aunt Marilyn said goodnight to their guests alone at the kitchen door a little after midnight. That was the last time anyone ever saw Aunt Marilyn alive — except for her killer.
