I don’t know why this is heavily on my mind right now. It’s a traumatic part of my past I think about maybe once every several years, as it happened nearly two decades ago. So why am I thinking of it now?
One thing my friend Paula taught me, prior to succumbing to ovarian cancer, is to write. Whenever I’m stuck in a moment, write. Whenever I need to work through something, write. Whenever I’m consumed by thoughts, just write. Just stop trying to figure it out or solve the problem and let the words flow, instead. So I’m going to give that a try here.
Once upon a time, I befriended a guy I worked with.
His name was Jason Hill. At the time, the company Transtechnik in Ball Ground was something of a “family business”. My father was a manager in one department, my mom worked in shipping and receiving, and I worked in a completely different department, under another manager.
Jason was my mom’s coworker in S&R, and I adored him. We had our silly little traditions and jokes, mainly that we’d start at the beginning of the alphabet each morning and call each other a different name each time we saw one another, going through the letters.
“Hey Adam!” I’d call out, for example.
“Good morning, Beatrice,” he may reply.
“Everything going OK today, Charles?”
“Absolutely, Dorothy!”
You get the point.
In late 2007 and early 2008, my parents were taking a lot of time off work, traveling back and forth to New Orleans to be with my paternal grandparents, Harry and Shirley Lacheny. Harry’s health was declining rapidly, and Shirley wasn’t faring much better, so Mom would cook meals, help around the house with cleaning, etc, while my father would do home repairs. Mom even cooked an elaborate meal days prior to Thanksgiving, only to pack it up immediately, telling me she was bringing it to the Lacheny’s.
Harry had experienced a lifetime of heart issues, having had a quadruple bypass when I was a child. By then in his 70s, he needed another bypass and valve replacement. My parents once again headed to New Orleans, to be there for the surgery. However, while the valve was placed successfully, he ended up not being strong enough to come off the bypass machines. I received the call from my mom, while I was at work, that he had died.
Harry and I had a falling out a few years prior (which may be obvious in my refusal to refer to him with any deserved grandfatherly title) when he angrily told me, “You need to understand why we love Casey more than we love you,” referring to my cousin I had always played second fiddle to, often at the sacrifice of my own dignity.
“I have to understand no such thing,” I had replied, as he backpedaled and gaslit me, claiming within seconds he never said those words. But it was too late; he had already confirmed when I had spent a lifetime brutally aware of, and we never spoke again. I cut off the entire Lacheny side of the family for their longterm toxicities, and to this day, I have no regrets, other than not doing it sooner.
So I don’t know why I cried, learning he died. Perhaps it was because even though it would never have happened regardless, it validated there would definitely no longer be a chance he’d come around and see me for someone other than his favorite grandchild’s problematic cousin who had, in recent years, developed the audacity to stand up for herself and tell Casey “no”. Or maybe it was relief it was finally over, and I was one grandparent down, with one to go, before I could move on with my life without being guilted and reprimanded by my father for having gone “no contact” with the people he felt had every right to say whatever they wanted to me, on the basis of “old people get a pass, and they’re your family.” I’m not sure. Whatever the case, I hung up the phone and walked out onto the workshop floor, to deliver the news to my father’s employees that my parents would be out there a few days longer than planned.
Jason knew immediately by my tears that my father’s father had not made it through surgery. And so, as I buried my face into the folds of the denim shirt he always wore as a jacket, he simply held me while I cried, softly telling me it would be ok and using his bare hands to gently wipe the tears from my face.
Those hands. Those same gentle hands would haunt my nightmares just 32 days later.
Jason was a fun loving guy also from New Orleans and would often talk to my mom and me about his sometimes hilarious adventures in the world of online dating. He became enamored with a woman named Wanda, and it seemed to be quite serious. By all outward appearances, he loved her deeply, a cheerful smile slipping onto his face each time he spoke of her, and all discussions gave the impression she reciprocated.
But one day, shortly after Harry died, Jason disappeared. I had his phone number, which he had given me when my parents were making those frequent New Orleans trips, in case I ever needed anything. Concerned for his well-being, I texted him one day, asking if he was ok. I received no reply. My father, his direct boss, was infuriated by Jason first calling out, then just being a no-show, and he didn’t make any attempt to disguise his rage. This placed Mom and me in an awkward position, as we both cared for Jason and were worried for him. Disappearing was not like him, at all. But no one could reach him.
A week or so into Jason’s disappearance, I could hear my father storming around the house, cursing him.
“What’s his game?” he was saying one night. “What has he gotten himself into?”
Apparently, a police officer had phoned my father, asking to confirm Jason’s whereabouts for a time range. My father replied he hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“So he wasn’t at work on these dates?” he said the officer asked him. “And you didn’t send him on a business trip?” My father replied honestly and repeated Jason had not been into work in weeks and revealed his job within the company didn’t even consist of road trips, ever. The officer thanked him and hung up, without further explanation and leaving my father confused.
Finding that odd but otherwise not seeing too big of a deal, I merely tucked it away in a mental file as a strange occurrence to be figured out later. It was just part of the ongoing mystery of Jason’s whereabouts, labeled more as curiosity than seriousness. I told my parents goodnight and retreated into my room, to scroll through the day’s news on my computer.
And then suddenly, I saw it: breaking news in Cherokee County.
Convinced I misread the short article, I read over it a second time, slower, then a third. After the fourth, tears welling in my eyes and my heart pounding in panic, I flew out of my room and banged on my parents’ door, barging in before they could respond.
“What’s Jason’s girlfriend’s last name?” I asked frantically, to the confusion of my parents. “Wanda, what’s her last name?”
Before they could ask what was happening, I broke down.
“He’s a murderer! He killed her,” I wailed, tripping over my words from trying to speak too fast . “He shot her in the face three times and killed her! And now he’s dead, too! Jason killed her and then himself! He’s a murderer, and they’re both dead!”
My mom, of course, was equally as alarmed as she was confused, leaping out of her bed. My father, however, was quietly realizing the reason the officer had called him: Jason had used being out of town on a business trip, ordered by my father, as an alibi for the murder of his then ex-girlfriend.
My mom quickly followed me into my room and hovered over my shoulder, reading the article for herself.
“He killed her, oh my god, he actually killed her!” Mom’s voice quivered, as started sobbing, stating she felt like she knew Wanda personally, given how much Jason spoke of her. I think she was also realizing she had worked closely alongside this man, day after day, two out of the three people who worked in S&H, bonding as a fellow Cajun from the bayous of Louisiana. And all this time, he held the capacity for murder when things didn’t go his way. “Oh my god, I can’t believe this is real,” Mom wailed, matching the tears streaming down my own face.
And that’s when I remembered his hands.
The same gentle hands that wiped my tears from my face had held a gun to his ex-girlfriend’s face and pulled the trigger. Then again, when she fell onto the bed. Then a third time, as she laid there, unmoving.
Those same hands that were so comforting to me squeezed the trigger 3 separate times, plunged 3 bullets into the face of the woman he swore he loved:
One.
Two.
Three.
Those very same fingers that so gently brushed away tear after tear from my cheek wrapped themselves around a gun pointed at the face of the woman he loved, and then squeezed the trigger repeatedly.
And then, when he was satisfied she was dead, permanently deleted from the world, he simply walked away and went home.
Days later, her coworkers began snooping around, worried that Wanda hadn’t been seen or heard from in days and involved police, who found her body inside her home. That’s when Jason panicked. He, as the ex-boyfriend, was the obvious initial suspect and told police he had been out of town on business. And so, as part of routine procedure, they called to verify this with his boss who allegedly sent him on the business trip: my father. But Jason knew the walls were closing in on him. He knew my father would destroy his alibi and police would return, so he barricaded himself inside his apartment and waited.
And when they did, he was ready. Right before they breached his barricade, those same hands that comforted me held the gun against his own head and pulled the trigger a final time.
My mom and I were confused and distraught .
My father, however, was infuriated that Jason would use him as an alibi, especially during a time when he was mourning the loss of his own father.
For years, I kept his number in my phone. “JASON HILL” would appear often, as I scrolled through my contacts. I couldn’t bring myself to delete it, yet every time I saw it, I thought about those hands. How could they be so gentle and reassuring, then do something so grotesquely evil? How could the same hands that wiped away my tears pull a gun’s trigger once, twice, three times into someone’s face? The woman he supposedly loved?
It’s been nearly 18 years, and I have no more answers now as I did then. The medical examiner never attempted to determine the exact day Wanda died, opting instead to mark the death certificate with the same date of Jason’s suicide: February 29, 2008. Because it was an “open and shut” case, they didn’t see a need to exhaust the expense of looking further into details they deemed irrelevant. So no one knows just how long Wanda’s lifeless body lay in her bed, her face destroyed by the man she once loved…by the same hands I’m sure she once felt were gentle and safe, too.
Tonight, unable to get the ordeal out of my mind, I went in search of the information, hoping for closure. However, all I found were two small blurbs which collectively hold even less information than the article I found on Yahoo News that night.
I can still picture Jason in my mind, all these years later, his gray hair swooped slightly over his eyes. I see his wide, bright smile, as I’d carry an envelope onto the shipping and receiving floor. I can even hear his voice, as he’d figure out what letter we’re on—“Hey Gertrude!”—and his laughter, his eyes squinting happily, as I’d reply, “Hi, Horace!”
I can see the knowing smirk on his face whenever I’d “coincidentally” make a delivery to the Shipping & Receiving department when their UPS driver was doing the same. I hear his quiet whispers, teasing me of the UPS slogan at the time, “what can brown do for you?” as he’d gently elbow me, brutally aware of my intense crush on the driver. I would always shove him in response, my face burning bright red, as his genuine laughter made me chuckle in return.
All these many years later, it’s as vivid as though it happened last week.
It’s cliche to say no one saw the warning signs, but we really didn’t. There were no red flags. I can’t even recall whether Mom knew Jason and Wanda had broken up. I think she may have, but certainly no one predicted such a mild-mannered, softly spoken guy would ever even entertain the idea of doing what he did.
When I think of him, I think of Wanda. I wonder if she had kids, though research alludes to her having only cats. If memory serves, I believe Jason had an adult son, though I haven’t been able to find any confirmation of this. That same research shows me Wanda’s parents were both living when she died, both passing 7 years later. Their grief was surely insurmountable, when they learned their daughter had been so brutally murdered and left to decompose in her own bed. Jason also had two brothers who were alive then. Were they as equally shocked? Did they see warning signs Mom and I missed?
I have so many questions still, with no way of getting answers. Did he hold her hostage for days prior to murdering her? Or was she killed the day he went to her house? How long was her body decomposing in her bed, before police found her? If she and Jason were broken up, did she let him in, or did he force his way through the door? How long had he planned this?
The case was never investigated, beyond the ballistics determining the bullets that killed Wanda were from the same gun Jason used to kill himself. They simply closed it, as soon as they opened it, deeming any further details irrelevant in the long run. So I will never receive the answers to any of the seemingly infinite questions plaguing my mind.
Part of me wants to visit Wanda’s final resting place, which I located with the “Find a Grave” site. I’m hoping it may help bring me an iota of closure, to be able to pay my respects to her. Notably, Jason was cremated, with no further information on any burial. Wanda’s grave is the only tangible piece of the puzzle I can use, to try to bring myself peace over this matter.
I admit I don’t think of Jason often anymore. But sometimes, his face appears in my mind, and all the memories begin to overwhelm me.
And when that happens, suddenly all I can see are those hands.
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