When Hell Seems To Prevail
This is a True Story
By: Walter W. Beall
My life has been a series of mixed blessings and disasters. In all the tragedies and triumphs the Lord has always been their as my source of strength and my eternal hope.
This is a true story on just one set of events that will seem almost unbelievable, and yet I lived it!
A Child is born
This story begins on March 11, 1983, and my second child is about to be born. I’m driving on Interstate 17 in Phoenix, trying to get to John C. Lincoln Hospital, and I’m driving our 1979 Jeep as fast as possible without being reckless as my wife Dawn is going into labor. Dawn keeps demanding me to stop as she wants to get out and walk to stop the pain, and I know if we stop we’ll never make it to the hospital. My son Walter was born on December 24, 1981 and it took only three hours for him to be delivered. So there is no way that I’m going to stop this Jeep.
She cries again, “Oh, stop! I need to walk!” All the time she is doing a step and stomp on the floorboard with her feet as she grabs her sides and lower back. I keep ignoring her as I pretended to be real calm and yet I’m really panicking in my mind and I’m silently praying to God. It’s really not easy to do almost nothing while you’re watching a loved one in pain. But I knew God was faithful to get us there on time.
We made it to the hospital within 20 minutes, and Dawn was being rushed to the delivery room while I was putting on one of those hospital gowns in a small side room. I hear a whooshing sound and it’s the gurney coming with Dawn on it with nurses all around her and someone is saying, “Don’t push! Don’t push!”
I finally got the gown on and it was a real fight as I thought the gown was going to win. I rushed to the delivery room when a doctor turned and looked at me and said, “It’s a girl!” Without thinking I yelled, “Praise the Lord!” Then all the hospital staff turned and smiled. Now that was a close call, and we just barely made it to the hospital when my daughter Nichole Ryan was born. I would say that was a 20-minute baby. Wow!
It was a fast recovery for Dawn and our new baby, and everyone was home within three days. Dawn was very proud as this was her little girl, and she called her half-sister Mandy in Doylestown, Pennsylvania to tell her. Her sister told her that she wanted to come and visit and later Dawn told me and I thought that would be nice. This was a time in our life where there were many changes, and we had no idea of the horror that would come within a few months from this simple yet innocent phone call.
Unusual Events
In 1979, I had moved from Carpinteria, California, in the Santa Barbara County to Phoenix, Arizona, where I bought a Franchise in a 7-Eleven Food Store. The store was located near the corner of 19th Avenue and Northern. In many ways I was truly not mature or responsible enough to handle this store, but I did my best, or so I thought at the time. This store always had it’s challenges, with the turnover in employees, cash shortages, inventory shortages, cars driving through your front windows (hitting the gas instead of the brake), armed robberies, shoplifters, police sting operations trying to catch your employees, beer runs (kids grabbing a 12 pack of beer and literally running out the door), cigarette runs (many cartons at a time) and being sued for a half-million dollars for a can of pop falling from the sales rack hitting a customer, and employees not showing up for work and especially at 11:00 PM, and your not allowed to close the store. Each of those events is a story unto itself.
Being the eldest of four, I always had to be the first to blaze a trail into the future, and it sure seemed I had more than my share of strange events, and here is just one example. While I was in the United States Air Force, I became a Law Enforcement Specialist. In 1973, I was assigned to Hill Air Force Base just outside Ogden, Utah. I reported for duty after taking an advance 30-days leave on the night of January 22nd, the same day President Johnson died, and during one of the worst snowstorms the area had seen in twenty-five years. Also, this was my very first experience with snow and I sure fell down a lot. I reported to the Desk Sergeant, and he was too busy to help me, as he was involved in an emergency where a spouse had cut the throat of her husband on base. What a first impression I received! Later I was given a housing assignment and was I taken there by one of the Sergeants. What I remember the most was that it was dark, cold and I couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction.
One of my first few assigned duties was to work on the West Gate base entrance. Also, I was assigned to work with one of the Department of Defense (DOD) Police Officers and he would train me on the various duties. During the first hours of the shift, my trainer needed to use the men’s bathroom at the Visitor’s Reception Center across the street. So he left me for a few moments. When he returned he said, “Take out your gun and hand it to me!” I asked why? He said, “Don’t argue with me, just do it!” I handed my weapon to him and he inspected it. He tried to open the cylinder of the 38 Revolver to examine my ammunition, but it wouldn’t open and it was jammed, and then he smelled the end of the barrel. He said, “You couldn’t fire this weapon even if you wanted to. It’s jammed!” He handed it back to me and told me to holster it and not to say anything to anyone about what had just happened. Then he apologized and explained why he did this.
Once he had worked with another Security Policemen who had taken his gun out and emptied his revolver into the base entrance sign. While he was at the Visitor’s Center using the bathroom he thought he heard a “Bang!” Now here I stand all night with a gun that won’t fire, and I don’t dare tell anyone because you’re not allow to take your gun out unless you’re going to use it or turn it back in. How could I explain that I learned it is jammed? In the morning I went through the routine of turning in the weapon at the clearing barrel and I could not unload it for the Armory Officer (you’re supposed to put all your ammunition in this block of wood with holes for each bullet, and thus accounting for each round). I just handed him the gun to work on. Now what are the chances of that happening and I never every had a gun jam since then. This is just one of the many strange things that have happened to me. By the way, that DOD Officer was one of the better officers I was able to work with and I always had respect for him and besides, he was a nice guy.
After our daughter Nichole was born I started to neglect the store more and more and I hired a manager. But I was at the store each day to oversee the cash reports and complete the bank deposits. This is a time when I started reading and studying the Bible and many times about 10 hours or more a day. I have always been a bit of an overkill kind of person, and for me it’s all the way or not at all. During this time I received a phone call from the State of Arizona, and they were going to release my mother from a state hospital. They insisted that I come and pick her up. After all “she’s your mother” the person said. We were renting a small two-bedroom home from a friend who was a Phoenix Police Officer, and now my mother was going to share one room with our son Walter. Dawn kept our daughter most of the time with us in our bedroom, and she moved the crib to our room. So at this point there are five of us now living in our home. But watch how this number will grow in next few months!
My mother (Crysta) was fine at first when she came to live with us, but she couldn’t work and she didn’t have a job and she started to neglect taking her medication. In the past she had some sever mental health problems and had shock treatment at Camarillo Hospital, in California, and she had a bad back. Some of her problems may have come from her mother, being that she was an alcoholic.
My dad was never abusive with our mother because he saw his mother abused and he promised himself never to treat his wife that way. So I don’t remember my mother or father ever having a loud argument. But mother did cause my dad lots of pain. I have three brothers, Mark, Kirk and Keith. My brother Mark and I are the closest in age and my other two were born when I was about 10 years of age. My brothers and I were often split up to stay with our grandparents or aunts while our mother went through her mental health problems.
We never had lots of stability with our family, and we moved a lot. When I join the Carpinteria Police Department’s Students Trained by Officers’ Program (STOP) in 1970. I had to provide a list of every place we lived at in the past ten years and I had twelve places to list. We moved from Pomona to La Puente, to Carpinteria, back to El Monte, then back to Carpinteria and then West Covina, and then back to Carpinteria. I went to three High Schools and I got used to never making long friendships, or having any lasting relationships, not to mention how it messed me up trying to learn things at school. But that is another long story too. Every time I would get back to Santa Barbara County and the Polo Field where I often worked, I would look for this blond hair and blue-eyed girl riding a white Welch pony. I had a crush on her for seven long years. It was the one constant I would look forward to each year or summer. But back then boys didn’t go with older girls, and she was about one year older than me and was born in March, the same month as my birthday. I think her birthday was the 7th, the day after mine. Her fist name was Lynn, and once I got close enough to speak with her and I was afraid she could hear my heart pounding from fear! I was that little boy with a crush that wouldn’t quite. I would sometimes just sit in the window of my second floor bedroom overlooking the Polo Field’s exercise track, waiting for hours at a time looking for a little white speck in the distance between the Lemon orchard trees, and I knew it was her coming riding that pony. I don’t think she really every knew, but I made arrangements for her High School Graduating Class (1971) to have the Polo Field’s Clubhouse for a graduation party. I was the last person to leave and had to clean up all the soda pop cans and trash.
Family Comes First
Well, back to the main story. While my mother stayed with us, she started to regress in her behavior. I would find her sitting at the kitchen table in the dark. She would often say things that made no sense and would tell me things about my life that never happened (Remember this, as this is an important point later on in this story). I do believe she was supposed to be taking some kind of medication but I never knew what it was. She often complained about her bad back she injured while working as a Grocery Checker many years ago in California. While she lived with us I made sure no alcohol was allowed in our home. My mother was an alcoholic for a time (I’m sure it’s the reason later she’ll become a street person and homeless) and my step-dad and step-grandfather were both found dead on a couch from drinking. Each died about one or two years apart.
I continued with my late night studies and I ended up reading the Bible from cover to cover twice. Dawn again reminded that her sister would come for a visit from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, very soon. Again, I thought that would be nice, and I didn’t ask any questions. What we didn’t know (or I didn’t) was how she would come and whom she would bring with her.
Later around the month of May, my little brother Keith needed a place to stay. So we opened our home to him too. Now we had six (6) living in our home. But what could we do, again it was family. So my brother slept on the living room couch for a time. During this time I was having personal problems with my finances and in that year I owed $7,000 in back taxes to the IRS. I was not a good planner, and I wanted to keep good employees so I paid them more than I could afford.
There were times I would go fishing or hunting with a friend, and I did a lot with another by the name of Rodney, and he was also a Phoenix Police Officer. Thanks to him we were renting our current home. Funny how I met Rodney, for one day he came to my store while on duty and stood behind me and when I turned around to talk to him we became friends from that moment on. It was as if I always knew him and that was really a strange feeling. He was an avid Fly Fisherman and I could never keep up with him due to his long legs. He would just seem to jump and bounce off those rocks like a Mountain Goat as he traveled up the creek with his fishing rod. I enjoyed the outdoors a lot and I learned where all the great spots were from being a Deputy Sheriff Jeep Posse member in 1980 to 81. We did lots of Lake Patrols and Search and Rescues. I didn’t do as much of this stuff during 1983, as I was really concentrating on my Bible studies and, as I said, I have always been an extremist you might say.
Around June 1st of 1983, I hired an employee who was living with a violent boy friend. One night at about 1:00 a.m. she called my home and she was crying. She said, “ I was sleeping when my boyfriend came home drunk and he woke me up by beating me in the face. He just went crazy hitting me! I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do.” She was calling me from a payphone outside a Circle K store. She had run to the store from her apartment, and she didn’t have a car. I understood the fear she had, for as a child my Step-Grandfather would go into a rage when he drank. One time he threw a chair and a knife downstairs at us while we visited our grandparents in Oakland, California for the summer. When my brother Mark and I stayed with them during the summers in the early 1960’s, they were living across the street for the Santa Barbara Polo Field. When they started to drink they would have some very violent fights. One time he broke my Grandmother’s arm (my mom’s mom). We would just hid at the Polo Field and we would return home late when it was dark. We would sneak up on the house and listen. If we didn’t hear anything we new they were asleep and we would sneak quietly into the house and go to bed. So I understood the fear my employee was experiencing.
While we talk on the phone she said, “Oh no! Oh my god! Here he comes!” I told her to run into the store where people were and ask the clerk to call the police. Back then we still didn’t have 911. She hung-up the phone and ran into the store. The rest of the story is now a blur and I can’t remember what she did or told me. But the next day when she came to work, I told her she should get out of his place as soon a possible and go some place else. She told me how he would just go crazy for no reason and she really had lots of fear about him. After talking with her for a while it was decided that we would go to her place and get her stuff and she would move into our home. This would only be a temporary situation and it’s better than living the way she was right now. While I was helping her to get her stuff I kept remembering what my brother Mark and I went through with our Grandfather Frank, and I was really very apprehensive about him discovering us. Now we’ll have seven (7) people living in our home. But wait, it was about to get better!
Just as we were about to go and get her stuff, a phone call came from my wife Dawn. She said, “My sister is here for that visit. They are out of money, and could you give them $20.00 and give them directions to our home. They will be by the store in a few minutes.” I said, “Okay.” Then I thought, “who is “THEY” and what kind of visit is this where they need money?” They had driven here from Pennsylvania non-stop. I still remember seeing the pickup truck pulling up to the side of the store loaded with furniture and towing a small U-Haul trailer. Her sister Mandy came with her live-in boyfriend “Bernie.” Also, a friend of theirs by the name of Jerry came too! So now we have three (3) more people coming to our home, and that now puts ten (10) people living in our small two-bedroom home. I gave them the money and gave them some sort directions to our home. I didn’t have time to talk as I was just living to get my employee’s stuff from her place and moving her to our home.
At this point I believe I was just numb about what was going on. But, what else could I do. We didn’t have much money and I’m trying to pay the IRS. I really don’t know how we made it. I went and got my employee’s stuff and again, I was very concerned about her boyfriend showing up, for she made me a believer about his violent behavior.
We made it to our home without any problems. I learned then that Dawn’s sister had made it to the house okay too. But, the truck they had drive in had its engine blow-up once they arrived at our home. So they were not going anywhere now! Later, I laughed with their friend Jerry when he told me that the odometer had broken at 666. But little did I realize what a hint this was to the terror of what was coming. I was kind of used to having strange events happening so this was nothing new. But, I should have really viewed this as a serious warning sign.
The next day Dawn called me when I was at the store and said my employee’s boyfriend threatened her. He had called our home, and I learned later that he got our number from someone at our store. His threats became very personable and Dawn called the police. He had threatened to come and do us some real harm. That night two Phoenix Police Officers staked out our home from a distance waiting to see if he would show up. After the officers waited a few hours, they came to our door to say they were watching our home. They did leave later that night but we didn’t know when.
The next day while my employee was taking out the trash for the store, a car pulled up sideways in the parking lot, and two men got out and grabbed her pushing her into the back seat of the car. One of the men said to Dawn, “Your husband is lucky he’s not here!” He implied that he was going to do me some kind harm. Dawn then called the police to report her abduction. The police weren’t too concerned because she was an adult. I didn’t understand how they could be so calm about an employee being taken from the store during her shift. Dawn had to stay and cover the shift until another employee came to work. To this day, I still don’t understand why the police didn’t do anything. It was as if it was nothing.
For three days we never heard a word about what happened to my employee. Now this is where it gets even stranger. But now I understand what physiologists call the “Stockholm Syndrome.” I got a call from Dawn while I was working at the store. She told me how two police officers came to our home with their nightsticks out ready to hit my wife and a helicopter over the house. They came to help my employee to get her stuff and they were told that we had held her captive at our home and we were religious cult members of the former Jim Jones. This was a time when what Jim Jones did was still fresh in the minds of people and former cult members were being located in the country.
Now this really came as a shock. Later a Phoenix Police Sergeant came by the neighborhood and was parked down the street. Dawn and I went outside to talk to him. Seems he didn’t understand what happened and I couldn’t get any clear answers about what happened. I was frustrated at the lies, deception and lack of answers from everyone. I was confused and I wanted some answers. For at heart, I was still proud of my previous law enforcement background and believed in honesty and truth. All we were trying to do was help this employee and everything got twisted and turned upside down. The employee never came back to work and I never saw her again until about one year later. I’ll explain how that came about when we get to it in the story.
Late Night Hours
Life seemed to return to normal with nine people living in our home. The fourth of July came and we went onto the roof of the house to watch the show. I sat there with Mandy and Bernie as he held our one-year-old son. While we were on the roof, I remember a call came from the store and an employee could not make it to work that night on the 11pm to 7am shift. Dawn decided to cover the shift and she took her sister and our four-month-old daughter with her. This would be a good time for her to talk to her sister without Bernie being around, and part of the reason Mandy came was to see our baby girl and to spend some time with her sister. But Bernie didn’t like her to be out of his sight and his control. He got angry when she would leave without taking him or talking to him first. This was just adding fuel to a fire we didn’t know was already burning. But nothing unusual happened that night. Later around the next day, I discovered a hole in the sheetrock in the garage. I learned later that Bernie had gotten mad and punched the wall. This was just another sign I missed about his violent nature. I believe this pent-up anger was the beginning of the main reason he would snap later. We didn’t know at the time, but Bernie was on probation for blacking out and destroying the inside of a trailer in Pennsylvania.
One night at about 1:00 am, I was still doing my late night Bible study when Bernie came out of the bedroom to talk with me and he brought Mandy. He told me during the conversation that he was once in the US Navy and he got out of the service after threatening to blowup the submarine he was serving on. Now at the time I really didn’t believe him. I wondered if this was the truth, and if it was, then why didn’t he go to prison (?). But I left that question unanswered, and I thought he was just telling me a story to impress me about had bad he was. This should have been another big hint for me about his unpredictable behavior. I really thought at one time that most of the difficulties Bernie was experiencing would be taken care of when one night the conversation turn to Christianity and faith. Bernie and I went to our bedroom where I led him privately in a simple salvation prayer. What I learned from this was that you can’t force anyone to receive the Gospel and he or she must willing receive it as a choice. Our little prayer was nothing more than empty words filling the air, and his heart was unchanged. But I didn’t know it at the time.
We kept trying to find a place for Bernie and Mandy to move to, and in time we did find them one and it was through my store manager. He was a landlord and arrangements were made for them to move into one of his places he owned. Sometime later my manger told me that they were crazy people because they tore the bathroom sink off the wall and threw it out the window. I really thought he was making up the story, or just lying about what he saw. It just didn’t make any sense what he said and sounded too crazy, or maybe someone else had done the damage. But again this was just one more clue of what was coming, and I should have listened! Bernie and Mandy told us that the place was a dump, and it was too far from job site. So they moved back in with us where Bernie and Jerry could walk to work. We were never told what happened at the apartment by Mandy.
One time when Jerry and Bernie returned from work I received another warning sign and I just ignored it too. But this time the warning was loud and vocal. I remember looking at Bernie coming though the front door, standing in our living room, and that’s when I heard “Evil!” real loud. Now that caught me off guard, and I thought “Where in the world did that come from?” and I just blew it off thinking that sounded crazy and why did I think that. Little did I know that was not my thoughts and it came from the Lord or and Angel of God that spoke in my ear trying to warn me.
During their stay with us, I always noticed that Bernie’s friend Jerry had a military type knife in a sheath on his side. You’ll understand this later. But, by now I’m sure a pattern is starting to form in your mind about what might be coming. Even as I recall these events I’m still filled with pain and heaviness. Also, I know I’m mostly at fault from what happened to us. Let me clarify why I am saying this.
During this time of owning the store I had compromise in my life. The store was more of an Evangelistic Corner, and I gave away over 20,000 New Testaments to customers in a six-year period. But I was having financial problems and I knew the manager I hired was a thief. He even told me that he was a thief and a liar and I still hired him. So I was at fault for what was going to happen. I allowed something into our store, life and family, and it was going to cause us lots of pain. Now, this was part of the reason I didn’t believe him when he told me they had torn out the bathroom sink and threw it out the window. After all, he told me he was a liar.
Here is another strange thing that happened prior to the events that were going to happen on July 23, 1983. About a week before Dawn went to a garage sale and she bought an electric lawnmower. That morning she tried it out and ran over the electric cord cutting it in half. We were thankful that no one was hurt and Dawn she was not electrocuted.
Persecution
Prior to the events of July 23rd, our health insurance was going to change. My insurance man (former 7-Eleven Field Representative and friend) had to go to California and he would be back in a few weeks. He told when the insurance would expire and he gave me a contract for a new company. About the 20th of this month I wrote a check for the new insurance and I placed the check on Dawn’s hutch in the kitchen area. I planned on mailing it with the contract once I received my next paycheck. But unfortunately this would never happen. During this time I generally took home about $350 to $400 a week and that’s assuming I had enough first to pay my employees. If there wasn’t enough, then I don’t get my Draw and that happened a few times. Also, there were times I took home nothing or as little as $150, and then I had to save what I could to trying and pay back the IRS. Add on top of that the caring and feeding of the nine people living in our home (my mother, brother, wife’s sister, her boyfriend, his friend, our children, my wife and I), and we never received any financial assistance from any of those staying with us.
During this time I had other problems through the store too. I enjoyed listening to good music and I often had a radio playing on a Christian station and I played it for our customers while they shopped the store. During this time someone came in and told my manager I was going to die. Another person called the store saying they were going to sue me for playing the radio. This last event upset my manager so much that he took the radio down and hid it, and I found it later in my office. Even at one point the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith wrote a letter to the Southland Corporation requesting to see my contract with them. They were very upset that I was giving away tracts that said “Jews for Jesus”. I was shown a copy of the letter by my friend the Field Representative who was also a good Christian. They were told that I was an independent contractor and that, in effect, I could do what I was doing.
They were looking for a legal way to stop me and have my store taken away from me for this “Anti-semantic” act of putting these tracts and Bibles on my sales counter and giving them away. So I was under lots of attacks for taking a stand for my faith. Some people say Christians are weak, and it’s only a crutch for them. Little do they realize, that it takes real courage to be truthful, and fair in believing in others. It’s easy to be fake, uncaring, and hurtful by thinking only of yourself. It’s not easy having people call you nasty names and hating you because you believe in something good that they don’t understand. Think on this. The first murder recorded in the Bible was over worshiping God.
Hell Tries To Prevail
On Friday, July 22, 2003, I decided to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations again. I started reading at 1:00 pm and I sat there well into the night. I received a phone call from the store at about 11:15 pm, and no one had showed up to relieve them. My contract with the Southland Corporation didn’t allow me to close the store, so I or someone else has to go and relieve the employee and cover the 11 pm to 7 am shift. Dawn said, “I’ll go and my sister can go with me.” So I decided that I would stay up all night studying and I would care for my son Walter, and Dawn took our four-month-old daughter Nichole with her.
I finished studying the next day with the Fall of Jericho. I had studied for almost 24 hours, and I didn’t go to bed until about 1:30 pm the next day, which was now 23rd of July. This was a very hot day and our evaporate cooler wasn’t working properly and I really didn’t know that I needed to change the pads and that water was to run over the pads. I didn’t have a clue to how they worked. Before I moved to Phoenix I lived in Santa Barbara County and the hottest it ever got there was about 90 degrees. After all, we lived near or on the beach many times. But I went to bed that afternoon with it being very hot and miserable.
While I was sleeping my mother sat at the kitchen table most of the time. This is where I had spent my long nights studying, and it wasn’t a large table but it did have six chairs. Bernie and Jerry went to work early that morning and they walked to their job site as they normally did. They were hanging new sheetrock in these homes.
Sometime around Noon, Dawn and Mandy brought the men some lunch from Burger King. Dawn stayed in the jeep with Nichole and Walter while Mandy took the hamburgers to them. When Mandy entered the house, she was shocked to see what Bernie was doing and saying! She saw him throwing Jerry’s knife into the new sheetrock they had just hung and talking about killing us. Shaken and alarmed, Mandy returned to the jeep and told Dawn “You should call the police!” Mandy at times appeared as someone who was easily excitable and she wasn’t good at explaining things, so Dawn didn’t pay any attention to her. It didn’t make sense what Mandy was trying to tell her so she just ignored it, and that was not uncommon. Also, what no one knew at the time was that Bernie and Jerry were drinking and using drugs. Again bringing more fuel to the fire. Dawn and Mandy then left to do other things like checking out some shops and garage sales.
About three hours later after I had fallen asleep, Bernie and Jerry came home and sat down at the kitchen table with my mother. My mother overheard them talking and what she heard really scared her. She slowly got up from the table as not to raise suspension, and she came to my room to trying to wake me. She told me, “There’s going to be trouble!” But I didn’t listen and I just thought “Sure mom”. I had remembered all the times she sat in the kitchen saying some strange things. So I thought this was just another example of her imagining things, so I went back to sleep. I was really exhausted and I had no patients to listen.
My mother returned to the kitchen table to watch and listen to what Bernie and Jerry were saying. While she sat there she overheard them talking about killing us. Just about that time, Dawn came home with Mandy and the children. Mandy went straight to the bathroom to take a shower while Dawn was making a beeline for the kitchen sink. Walter was demanding a drink of water because it was so hot and the Jeep didn’t have air conditioning. Dawn was holding Nichole in one arm and with the other she was getting a glass of water. While her back was turned to the kitchen table, my mother saw Jerry hand his knife to Bernie. Bernie then got up from his chair and came up behind Dawn.
When Dawn turned around to give the water to Walter Bernie said, “I don’t like your attitude!” And he stabbed her in the middle of her chest hitting a main artery to the heart. He attempted to stab her again and this time it went through Dawn’s arm and into the back of little Nichole, almost all the way through her from the lower back to her belly button. The knife had cut a chip off of her spine and cut one-third of a kidney off. Dawn’s chest wound was caused blood to fill into both of her lungs and they were collapsing.
My mother got up from the kitchen table and ran to my bedroom where I was still asleep. Bernie then chased her. The bedroom door flung open and my mother ran to one corner of the room. Bernie then jumped on my bed pining me under the sheets and started repeatedly stabbing me about seven times. All I could do was roll from side to side due to his weight and being pinned. While I was being stabbed, Dawn saw Jerry standing in the hallway watching with his arms crossed as though he was guarding the way. She tried to yell at him saying, “My God Jerry, do something!” Dawn then ran out of the house to our neighbors and all the time she’s trying to say, “My baby! My baby!”
My mother stood there helpless to do anything watching this horrifying site of him stabbing her son. She then decided to run hoping to draw him away, and it worked. Bernie was now chasing her out the front door of the house to our neighbor’s front yard where he tackled her. This is the same neighbor where Dawn had run earlier. Bernie now had my mother on the ground and was just about to stab her when Jerry came to his senses. Jerry had followed Bernie out the front door and he took the knife away from him before he could stab her. But during the scuffle Jerry had stabbed Bernie in the leg. This would then cause some confusion for the police when the arrived for they will think he is just another victim. Bernie now gets up and turns toward the home where Dawn and the baby are.
Another neighbor across the street heard all the commotion and he ran to help carrying a small handgun like a Derringer. He pointed his gun at Jerry and ordered him to drop the knife. Jerry dropped the knife and sat down on the curb of the street, and he held him there until the police arrived. Mother sat there dazed and Bernie is now approaching the neighbor’s door.
Previously, after Dawn was stabbed, she had run to our neighbor’s carport kitchen door where she stood knocking. Our neighbor Bob and his wife answered the door and were stunned to see blood gushing from Dawn’s chest. Dawn is still trying to say, “My baby! My baby!” But her lungs are filling with blood, and they didn’t understand and realize the baby was also hurt.
Bob took the baby from her arms and his wife had Dawn to sit on the kitchen floor. Bob placed Nichole on the kitchen counter and he turned around to pick up the phone to call the police. When he turned back to look at the baby he saw a puddle of blood coming from under the baby’s back and then he realized the baby was hurt too. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and after he finished calling the police there came another knock at the kitchen door. This time it was Bernie.
Bob opened the door and Bernie stepped into the kitchen. Bob told him, “We have injured people here. What do you want?” Bernie never answered him and appeared like he was dazed, confused or in shock. The rage and anger he showed earlier was now gone. He gently pushed Bernie back telling him again they had injured people they were trying to help. Bob had no idea that Bernie had done all the stabbing and he though he was just another victim. Bob decided he needed to take Bernie by the arm and lead him to our home and have him sit down until the police arrived.
Before Bob had helped Bernie back to our house, I had managed to get up out of my bed and was trying to get into the bathroom. I wanted to look at myself to see how bad I was in the bathroom mirror. Just like the time when I got hit in the mouth with a baseball when I played on the Tigers. I left everyone trying to find a mirror to see how bad it was. But the door from our bedroom side was locked and I didn’t know that Mandy was in there taking a shower.
I then made my way to the living room, and I didn’t know I was bleeding to death. By the time I passed by the other bathroom door, Mandy opened it just in time to see me going by wearing nothing and covered in blood. What she saw frightened her so bad that she didn’t wait to put her shirt on. She just wrapped a towel around herself and ran out the front door to the opposite side of our home, to the other neighbors and she hid herself in the bushes. Later the police thought she was another victim because they couldn’t find her at first, she had hid herself well. I don’t recall seeing or hearing her as I was in a state of shock with a collapsed left lung. Blood was pouring out of me as my right arm was slit almost in half and my left side was cut from the arm to my back in a “V” shape cut.
I remember feeling light headed and it was very hot but I never saw my own blood or saw how bad I was. I knew I was going into shock as I have passed out in the past and I recognized that my ears ringing meant I was about to faint. I had managed to walk to the living room feeling hurt emotionally like a child who gets punished for something he didn’t do. I was wondering where everyone was and I could see the front door was open just a little. I had no idea that others were hurt.
I made it to the kitchen and I walked around it once or twice and I thought about the Lord thinking how he could heal me of this instantly. These were real fast thoughts and I thought of the Lord three times standing and watching, knowing what was going on. I then noticed the kitchen clock and it was after 5:00 pm. I wasn’t sure what to do at first, and then I picked up the phone and punched “O” for Operator because we didn’t have 911.
Just before I dialed the Operator, I heard these words flash in my mind, “You only have enough time to tell the Operator you need an ambulance and police and give your address!” I remember the Operator answering with that beep sound. I gave her the information and I remember thinking as I went out “Right on queue.” Just as I was told I passed out sitting in a kitchen chair and slumped over the kitchen table with the phone still in my left hand.
Now by this time, Bob brought Bernie back to our home and led him by the arm. He had him sit down on the living room floor and he never saw me slumped over kitchen table. He then ran back to his house. The police arrived with the fire department and an ambulance. The Paramedics started to treat Dawn and the baby. The first officer to arrive at our home had his gun drawn and when he opened our front door he saw Bernie looking at me as if checking to see if I was alive. Once Bernie saw the police officer he immediately raised his hands in the air.
The Phoenix Police Officer thought Bernie was just another stabbing victim because of the knife wound he had in his leg. They were thinking at this point that Jerry did the stabbings. This first Officer then checked me for vital signs and said that I was dead and told my neighbor Bob and his wife this. Another neighbor also checked me and he too said I was dead. At some point one of the Paramedics came to check on me and he was heard yelling, “We’ve got one!” He was referring to me and they started to work on me.
Then the second Officer came to our home and saw that my eyes were open as I laid on the ambulance gurney. He started asking me questions but I didn’t answer him, and to this day I still don’t remember this or have any memory of anything until I awoke in the hospital. I was then loaded into an AirVac helicopter. They had two helicopters land, one on each end of the street. Dawn and I both had collapsed lungs and one hospital couldn’t handle two lung patients so they had to fly us to separate ones. Nichole our baby was transported by ambulance to a local preparation center until she was stable enough to be flown to the main hospital.
The second Officer was assigned to take Bernie to the hospital for treatment and it was on the way there that he learned over the radio that Bernie had done the stabbings. He was surprised and all this time he had thought Bernie was just another victim.
The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital and guess who I saw standing in the hallway? It was my manager. That was like a reminder to me of why this happened. He had told the hospital staff that he was my pastor, and that is why they let him in. I remember having the worst case of thirst I have ever experienced and I couldn’t talk. I kept trying to say “Water! Water!” The nurse kept giving me little dabs of water on this little sponge on a stick. Now that was driving me nuts for more water. She said later she would get me a Popsicle if I wanted one. I never liked popsicles before but that now changed. Later she had to buy it from her own funds at a local Circle K store. It was the best Popsicle I ever had in my life. I also remember thinking now she was the most beautiful nurse I had ever seen before.
Later I was moved to an ICU room and there the doctor told me, “Your wife and baby are fine and they are at Good Samarian Hospital.” This was the first time I realized that I wasn’t the only one hurt. He didn’t say anything about my son Walter, so I assumed the worst and I thought he might be dead. I thought he was just afraid to tell me. But he was alright and was taken in by one of our church families.
While I was in ICU I was asked how many pastors I had because three had said they were my pastor. I remember seeing a man next to me receiving his last rights from a Catholic Priest. While I was there a Police Corporal from our church came to see me and he was in uniform. He asked if I had insurance. I told him about the check I had written and where it was. He went to our home and got the check. He presented it to the insurance company but they had seen the news on us as we were headline news and they refused to take the check.
When I was fully conscience I was surprised to see all the stitches in my right arm. Then I saw the chest tube coming out of my left side. I learned I had broken ribs and I believe that may have happened when they gave me CPR. But who cares. I’m alive and that’s what mattered. I was also told I would lose some use of my right hand. To this day I can’t type with the right three fingers for they are numb I can’t straiten them out.
While in the hospital I was eventually assigned to a regular room and I was able to call Dawn. Then is when I learned how bad she was. But she wasn’t sure how bad Nichole our little daughter was. Dawn had lost a lobe of her right lung and two ribs. Also, she lost the feeling in her right breast. She originally had two collapsed lungs when the brought her in and they did a “Cut-Down” as they called it. Later we learned the knife wound Nichole received was right on top of her spine but it must have gone in at an angle. She lost a third of one of her kidneys and received a chip off her spine.
Within two weeks we were all out of the hospital. Our neighbor Bob later told us how he saw that police officer in a grocery that said I was dead, and kind of jokingly told him he should visit me as I was a pretty nice guy for someone he thought was dead.
We also now face a new challenge. We were without insurance and the other had lapsed. Our medical bills came to $70,000.00
Nichole was back into the hospital on her first birthday. Scare tissue had blocked her bowels and we were told this happens in about one on ten cases. While I was there I went to the visiting area to get a soda and that is when I saw my ex-employee who was kidnapped and had the police come to get her stuff. She was very sorry about what happened. I didn’t spend much time talking to her, and I just told her it was okay. I could tell she felt real bad about it and I could see the sadness on her face. At least she knew everything was fine.
Later, due to another emergency I ran into the officer that took Bernie to the hospital for treatment. It was then that I was able to piece together many of the events in addition to our neighbors on both sides of the block. I was still trying to understand what happened and why as I never had any harsh words with Bernie and I couldn’t figure out why he did this.
We were interviewed for financial assistance and the comment was made that it must be our faith that has helped us because most people who go through this type of tragedy need some type of counseling and we required none. Praise the Lord!
Bernie was sentenced to one count of Attempted Murder and two counts of Aggravated Assault. It was in 1994 that I leaned he died in prison of what they called “Natural causes”.
Nichole is now thinking about marriage and she is living in Doylestown, Pa with her two brothers Walter and Jordan who was born the following year of the stabbings on June 17, 2004. Today, I’m living in Alamogordo, New Mexico and I’m working as Security Guard, Freelance Photographer, and just enjoying life. I now have nine grandchildren.
Jerry was never charged and I don’t’ believe the police every understood his part in this, and he returned to Pennsylvania in 1983.
My mother Crysta Rea Beall became a street person for a while after we were stabbed.
She did settle down in a small community called Smith River in Northern California, where she died in October of 2003. I always wondered about her salvation and the very week she died, I had a dream with her standing and she was to the right of the Lord with him directly behind her. That was a good dream! I knew it was the Lord saying, “I got her!”
When it seems that hell prevails it really doesn’t for God is always with us!
(Note: Some of the names were changed)