“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature…and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?”
- Fedor Dostoevsky 1821-81 “The Brothers Karmazov” (1879-80)
The public area of the Michigan State Psychiatric hospital at Newberry contains six visiting rooms, florescent-lighted cells measuring 10x12, with walls and ceilings of Celotex. In each chamber, in addition to an electric ceiling fan, a permanently fixed steel table and chairs, there are concealed microphones, and as a part of the door, a one-way mirror observation portal. On Sunday, the seventh day of 2005, a solitary room was booked for 3:00PM,the hour Ward Stakel had selected for his first confrontation with Claude Guerre.
Just prior to that interview, Stakel gathered himself in the drifted over parking lot, preferring the numbing blizzard to the task before him.
“Testing...testing…I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, the inability to recognize the difference."
Rewind.
"I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, the inability to recognize the difference."
His wire was working. That night he would edit and transcribe the tapes, carefully manipulating their linear witness.
As Stakel remembers it:
"Nicole wanted to be there, behind the glass, but was instead stranded at the Detroit Renaissance Center, her residence since New Year's Eve. As far as I was concerned, this had to be the guy! Rosen's testimony, Guerre's movements and actions at that time, and what I would hear that day all pointed to him as the killer. Entering the room I was overcome by a sense of nausea, of awe and dread. And then I saw him."
"I imagined a bigger man, more physically imposing; not some rail-like wraith with lemur eyes. He was 62 years old but could've passed for 40. Oblivious to the core, he wore a tattered wife-beater, black horned-rim glasses, and black shoes with no socks or shoelaces. I shook his hand. It was warm and clammy."
"'Mr Guerre,” I began, “my name is Ward Stakel. I am here on behalf of a private client with regard to events that took place some 40 years ago. You do, of course, have the right to say nothing. However, I must also tell you that you can no longer be prosecuted for any criminal actions you may have engaged in at that time. Further, should your responses be forthcoming enough to satisfy my client, we will waive the criteria for parole.”
He eyed me icily, with dirty, piercing eyes, a thoroughly despicable looking creature, with a repugnant, sneering grin. Seemingly unmoved by what should have inspired some kind of response. With a soft soprano whine, and articulate diction, he spoke.
"Been there, done that." Isn't that the quaint little colloquialism one uses in these situations? But all of these things happened so very long ago,” Guerre said, oddly serious for a moment.
“Now Mr. Guerre-“
“Claude.”
“Claude, we're interested in what you remember about your time in the Queen City and St. Ignace area around 1971. Do you recall an acquaintance you may have had? A Mr. Louis Oliver? He claims to have been a friend of yours in those days."
"I remember him all right, Oliver was a joke. Always worried about right and wrong, good and bad. A lot of good it did him, all this talk. It never seemed to prevent him from making the wrong choice.”
“What kind of choices might these be,” I asked.
“How subtle. Oh...you know, like deciding whether to kill someone or not. Come on. Where are you going with this? What is it you want to know?”
“Why don't we begin by talking about your childhood, you know, your family background?”
Fixing me with those wild eyes, Guerre spun a tale. He remembered when he was 13. His father had euthanized the family cat, Boots.
“No matter what we tried, Boots refused to use the litter box. This went on for months, until one day dad decided to, as he so delicately described it, to 'put Boots away.' Only my father would think of electrocution as a humane method of death. Papa assured us that the cat would die immediately, mercifully. However, when it tore away from the electrified snare, he trapped it in a burlap bag and beat it to death with a shovel.”
That was the only episode from his family life that Guerre mentioned. By his brief account, he had worked as a morgue attendant, paramedic, short order cook and cab driver--all before the age of twenty.
“Let's talk about Oliver.”
“A strange one, such an intellectual, so shrewd. And such an interest in…what was his theoretical spin? The dynamics of moral consideration, that was it! How lofty. Ha Ha. Such a talespinner and glib talker, Spewing his academic snake oil as if it might make words more potable for having been treated with his unique blend of erudite semantic additives.”
"I can never tell you what you want to hear; but I can tell you something about Louis and I."
"What Claude?"
"They were moored at the Big Bay Marina.”
“Who Claude?”
“Some yacht girls from Cleveland, or Erie. Somewhere like that. We took them to an apartment above the Lumberjack. It was late. Louis disappeared with one up an attic ladder, while I entertained the others with my guitar. I never saw her again. He strangled her.”
"Strangled who, Claude?"
"I don't know. Just her. As it turned out, at least according to the newspaper I read, she was really a man. ‘Someone left a cake out in the rain.' Certainly a romantic lyric, don't you agree Mr. Stakel? May I call you Ward?"
"No. Please don't use my first name,' I whispered."
“As Louis descended the ladder carring a sawed off shotgun, I produced a Nazi bayonet I had stolen from my Pappy's brother, uncle Bull. It didn't take long to hogtie and gag them. There is nothing duct tape can't do. Did you know they used it during the Viet Nam War to repair Helicopter rotors. Amazing. Then we marched them down to the basement. I tended to the two youngest first. Taped their hands together, using an overhead steampipe to suspend them. I positioned them in such a way that they couldn't avoid watching us. We ordered the other two to undress. Grabbing a dusty refrigerator box from between the coal stoker and furnace, I flattened it out, forming a large stiff rectangle. Since I felt it was inordinately cruel to ask the eldest to stretch out on the cold concrete floor, I provided this makeshift pallet as her final resting place, securely afixing her hands and feet in a splayed position. The last girl, so beautiful, skin so exquisitely while, like alabaster or porcelain, I tied spread-eagled, face down on an old fashioned bumper pool table."
"The basic tools of torture are fist and boots. Nothing else is really needed to inflict suffering. Other items that come to mind, of course, are knives, broken bottles and cigarettes--all of which we had at our disposal. In the way of a whip, we had a scourge of electric cord and rubber fan belt. According to Oliver--a connoisseur of pain--a method of torture commeon to India and Pakistan is, Cheera, a torment in which the victim's legs are spread apart until the muscles tear and great bruises form in the groin. We applied this. We also used electric shock, targeting the genitals, nipples and lips--which are not only the most sensitive parts of the body but also the most private and personal ones. Applied by simply touching the skin with bare wires. Needless to say, we first sexually assaulted them. Oliver dutifully informed me this is regarded as the supreme agony, causing the victim the ultimate humiliation, indignity, and lasting psychological damage--a problem these girls wouldn't have to worry about. After this, we garroted them with guitar strings.
A funny story my friend! Is it not? Cest la vie. Me, a boulevardier, raconteur, bricoleur, flaneur, and doctor, having fun; I remembered a jet out of K.I. Sawyer--an F101 Voodoo, I believe--that went down in Lake Superior in 1962. They never found the pilot. And I thought right then, I'll kill Oliver. No witnesses.”
Guerre paused.
"I had come expecting to hear the worst," Stakel recalled," but not in the form of a story like this. I had hoped to learn what happened to Don Merryweather. Instead I was regaled with a story so appaling I was left with more questions than answers. If this were true, who were these women Guerre, and possibly Oliver, had murdered? Guerre's confession, although implying the fate of Nicole's father, failed to satisfy my understanding of why. What motive? What intent compelled these horrible crimes?”
Stakel sought refuge in the solace of inexplicability. This crime was a simple twist of fate, a violence without meditation, pre or otherwise. The victims might have died in a plane crash or earthquake. But Stakel couldn't leave it at this. They had suffered cruely, and needlessly.
"I saw no desire for redemption in his eyes. No remorse. No flicker of self-examination. Still, I attempted to temper my anger with consideration, my ultimate judgment unfolding from my sympathy, no, my recognition of the cruel possibilities of human nature and an understanding of the need for retribution when these forces are unleashed. For Guerre's pathetic psychosis had never given him the chance to experience what flows from an affect nourished by the dynamics of human emotion, he had no empathetic, and thus moral, function. His longing was without love, his hatred without spite.
My sympathy, however, brooked no forgiveness, no mercy; but it did require that I meet that moral obligation of understanding the man I was about to condemn. His sentence was sealed, albeit on strictly circumstancial evidence.”
- Fedor Dostoevsky 1821-81 “The Brothers Karmazov” (1879-80)
The public area of the Michigan State Psychiatric hospital at Newberry contains six visiting rooms, florescent-lighted cells measuring 10x12, with walls and ceilings of Celotex. In each chamber, in addition to an electric ceiling fan, a permanently fixed steel table and chairs, there are concealed microphones, and as a part of the door, a one-way mirror observation portal. On Sunday, the seventh day of 2005, a solitary room was booked for 3:00PM,the hour Ward Stakel had selected for his first confrontation with Claude Guerre.
Just prior to that interview, Stakel gathered himself in the drifted over parking lot, preferring the numbing blizzard to the task before him.
“Testing...testing…I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, the inability to recognize the difference."
Rewind.
"I'm afraid, afraid of the truths I might uncover, lies I might inspire, or worse, the inability to recognize the difference."
His wire was working. That night he would edit and transcribe the tapes, carefully manipulating their linear witness.
As Stakel remembers it:
"Nicole wanted to be there, behind the glass, but was instead stranded at the Detroit Renaissance Center, her residence since New Year's Eve. As far as I was concerned, this had to be the guy! Rosen's testimony, Guerre's movements and actions at that time, and what I would hear that day all pointed to him as the killer. Entering the room I was overcome by a sense of nausea, of awe and dread. And then I saw him."
"I imagined a bigger man, more physically imposing; not some rail-like wraith with lemur eyes. He was 62 years old but could've passed for 40. Oblivious to the core, he wore a tattered wife-beater, black horned-rim glasses, and black shoes with no socks or shoelaces. I shook his hand. It was warm and clammy."
"'Mr Guerre,” I began, “my name is Ward Stakel. I am here on behalf of a private client with regard to events that took place some 40 years ago. You do, of course, have the right to say nothing. However, I must also tell you that you can no longer be prosecuted for any criminal actions you may have engaged in at that time. Further, should your responses be forthcoming enough to satisfy my client, we will waive the criteria for parole.”
He eyed me icily, with dirty, piercing eyes, a thoroughly despicable looking creature, with a repugnant, sneering grin. Seemingly unmoved by what should have inspired some kind of response. With a soft soprano whine, and articulate diction, he spoke.
"Been there, done that." Isn't that the quaint little colloquialism one uses in these situations? But all of these things happened so very long ago,” Guerre said, oddly serious for a moment.
“Now Mr. Guerre-“
“Claude.”
“Claude, we're interested in what you remember about your time in the Queen City and St. Ignace area around 1971. Do you recall an acquaintance you may have had? A Mr. Louis Oliver? He claims to have been a friend of yours in those days."
"I remember him all right, Oliver was a joke. Always worried about right and wrong, good and bad. A lot of good it did him, all this talk. It never seemed to prevent him from making the wrong choice.”
“What kind of choices might these be,” I asked.
“How subtle. Oh...you know, like deciding whether to kill someone or not. Come on. Where are you going with this? What is it you want to know?”
“Why don't we begin by talking about your childhood, you know, your family background?”
Fixing me with those wild eyes, Guerre spun a tale. He remembered when he was 13. His father had euthanized the family cat, Boots.
“No matter what we tried, Boots refused to use the litter box. This went on for months, until one day dad decided to, as he so delicately described it, to 'put Boots away.' Only my father would think of electrocution as a humane method of death. Papa assured us that the cat would die immediately, mercifully. However, when it tore away from the electrified snare, he trapped it in a burlap bag and beat it to death with a shovel.”
That was the only episode from his family life that Guerre mentioned. By his brief account, he had worked as a morgue attendant, paramedic, short order cook and cab driver--all before the age of twenty.
“Let's talk about Oliver.”
“A strange one, such an intellectual, so shrewd. And such an interest in…what was his theoretical spin? The dynamics of moral consideration, that was it! How lofty. Ha Ha. Such a talespinner and glib talker, Spewing his academic snake oil as if it might make words more potable for having been treated with his unique blend of erudite semantic additives.”
"I can never tell you what you want to hear; but I can tell you something about Louis and I."
"What Claude?"
"They were moored at the Big Bay Marina.”
“Who Claude?”
“Some yacht girls from Cleveland, or Erie. Somewhere like that. We took them to an apartment above the Lumberjack. It was late. Louis disappeared with one up an attic ladder, while I entertained the others with my guitar. I never saw her again. He strangled her.”
"Strangled who, Claude?"
"I don't know. Just her. As it turned out, at least according to the newspaper I read, she was really a man. ‘Someone left a cake out in the rain.' Certainly a romantic lyric, don't you agree Mr. Stakel? May I call you Ward?"
"No. Please don't use my first name,' I whispered."
“As Louis descended the ladder carring a sawed off shotgun, I produced a Nazi bayonet I had stolen from my Pappy's brother, uncle Bull. It didn't take long to hogtie and gag them. There is nothing duct tape can't do. Did you know they used it during the Viet Nam War to repair Helicopter rotors. Amazing. Then we marched them down to the basement. I tended to the two youngest first. Taped their hands together, using an overhead steampipe to suspend them. I positioned them in such a way that they couldn't avoid watching us. We ordered the other two to undress. Grabbing a dusty refrigerator box from between the coal stoker and furnace, I flattened it out, forming a large stiff rectangle. Since I felt it was inordinately cruel to ask the eldest to stretch out on the cold concrete floor, I provided this makeshift pallet as her final resting place, securely afixing her hands and feet in a splayed position. The last girl, so beautiful, skin so exquisitely while, like alabaster or porcelain, I tied spread-eagled, face down on an old fashioned bumper pool table."
"The basic tools of torture are fist and boots. Nothing else is really needed to inflict suffering. Other items that come to mind, of course, are knives, broken bottles and cigarettes--all of which we had at our disposal. In the way of a whip, we had a scourge of electric cord and rubber fan belt. According to Oliver--a connoisseur of pain--a method of torture commeon to India and Pakistan is, Cheera, a torment in which the victim's legs are spread apart until the muscles tear and great bruises form in the groin. We applied this. We also used electric shock, targeting the genitals, nipples and lips--which are not only the most sensitive parts of the body but also the most private and personal ones. Applied by simply touching the skin with bare wires. Needless to say, we first sexually assaulted them. Oliver dutifully informed me this is regarded as the supreme agony, causing the victim the ultimate humiliation, indignity, and lasting psychological damage--a problem these girls wouldn't have to worry about. After this, we garroted them with guitar strings.
A funny story my friend! Is it not? Cest la vie. Me, a boulevardier, raconteur, bricoleur, flaneur, and doctor, having fun; I remembered a jet out of K.I. Sawyer--an F101 Voodoo, I believe--that went down in Lake Superior in 1962. They never found the pilot. And I thought right then, I'll kill Oliver. No witnesses.”
Guerre paused.
"I had come expecting to hear the worst," Stakel recalled," but not in the form of a story like this. I had hoped to learn what happened to Don Merryweather. Instead I was regaled with a story so appaling I was left with more questions than answers. If this were true, who were these women Guerre, and possibly Oliver, had murdered? Guerre's confession, although implying the fate of Nicole's father, failed to satisfy my understanding of why. What motive? What intent compelled these horrible crimes?”
Stakel sought refuge in the solace of inexplicability. This crime was a simple twist of fate, a violence without meditation, pre or otherwise. The victims might have died in a plane crash or earthquake. But Stakel couldn't leave it at this. They had suffered cruely, and needlessly.
"I saw no desire for redemption in his eyes. No remorse. No flicker of self-examination. Still, I attempted to temper my anger with consideration, my ultimate judgment unfolding from my sympathy, no, my recognition of the cruel possibilities of human nature and an understanding of the need for retribution when these forces are unleashed. For Guerre's pathetic psychosis had never given him the chance to experience what flows from an affect nourished by the dynamics of human emotion, he had no empathetic, and thus moral, function. His longing was without love, his hatred without spite.
My sympathy, however, brooked no forgiveness, no mercy; but it did require that I meet that moral obligation of understanding the man I was about to condemn. His sentence was sealed, albeit on strictly circumstancial evidence.”
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