NEW HELL HOLE NEWS
OCTOBER 15, 2009
NEW HELL HOLE NEWS - #17 October 15, 2009 Hey y’all. In the last edition it was just an affidavit that I’m going to use in connection with some current litigation. But I just wanted y’all to see the actual mechanics of how things are done here and how these yahoos screw you over once a warden mandates or approves it. Maybe after better examples are shown, I thought, y’all could understand why I call this place a hellhole, and, speaking of that term, special writers have picked up on it. For example, in the March 30th online New Yorker magazine Atul Gawande wrote a scathing article about SHU’s called “Hellhole!”and several other reporters have used that term – there was an article I got off counterpunch blog that came out in some big newspaper called “What about our own Hellholes?”, saying that before we go half way around the globe investigating conditions in other prisons we ought to be looking at our own, here. So, I guess my writings are read with interest by some, somewhere, huh? I’d begun to wonder, because I put my name and address on everything I write but I never get any response or feedback although I do sometimes get feedback out of live chat room forums, I.M. and texts/E-mail people sometimes print out and send me. It’s useful to me to know what people are saying out there, so if anyone will share that with me, come on with it! I also want to say, if you write me and don’t get a response, E-mail me at either h.w.skinner@gmail.com or hwskinner@yahoo.com and inquire, o.k.? I’m not always lightning fast to answer my mail but I usually do answer it. My stamp situation ebbs and flows. I do the best I can. After what happened to me on October 13th, 2009 I lost all my stamps and pens and more so ….. In this issue I want to talk a bit about Todd Willingham. He was a good friend of mine here who died a horrible death on 02-17-09 for a crime he did not commit. I’m sure you all have read or heard the news of the Craig Beyler report or David Grann’s New Yorker story about Todd’s innocence? Well, I’d known it since I first met Todd in late 1996. I came out on the rec yard and there’s this guy sittin’ in the lil’ corner spot I usually occupy cuz it’s got a good wind draft, away from the pryin’ pig snouts of the swine, so I can smoke a leftie and chill. He’s sittin’ there lookin’ like a dam about to burst, tears welling up in his eyes, tryin’ to get a breath, but he just ain’t makin’ it. The tears spill. I see this man is in a profound state of distress. When the dam bursts, great heaving, wracking sobs come out of him, moans like I’ve never heard a human make, except those grieving over a just lost loved one, maybe. I’m “Hey dude. What’s up? You o.k.?” Todd: “Yeah. I can’t talk about it. I just need to be alone, o.k.?” This swine sticks his head up to the screen of the open cellblock window and says, “Hey, Willingham! You ain’t gotta worry about your kids burning no more! They’re in pieces, takin’ a swim in the toilet! We put ‘em out cuz you couldn’t, you piece of shit! Ha/ha ha/ha ha-haha!” They were in there “searching” his cell, tore up photos of his kids and flushed ‘em. This day marked the moment I got introduced to the reasons I have come to call Texas Death Row a “hell hole”. We were at the Ellis Unit, then. There was a cabal of really sick swine there on 2nd shift, all out of Corsicana and Waxahachie, who terrorized Todd all his days at Ellis – especially on the anniversary of the deaths of his children and their birthdays. This happened because Todd’s exwife was sleeping with one of those officers and she manipulated him to get the others to join in. She denies it, but it’s true. I’ve read “Judge” John Jackson’s “Guest Commentary” out of the Corsicana Daily Sun August 29th, 2009. This is the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Not a single thing Judge Jackson says is any proof that Todd committed any crime at all. 1
Judge Jackson says Todd, at the funeral looking down into the casket of his oldest daughter, said, “You’re not the one who was supposed to die” and implies it was because Todd intended to kill the twins. That simply is not true. Todd and I spent a lot of time together at Ellis. We visited together with our pen-pals, my pastor and his wife, and Todd’s parents. When they killed Todd I was on death watch with him. Todd and I had a lot in common. He’s born the same year as my lil’ sister and we grew up in almost identical, parallel lives. He in Oklahoma, me in Virginia. I think/feel Todd always believed his wife killed his kids and meant to kill him, too. He just wouldn’t openly voice that belief, for whatever reasons he had. I believe he thought it would amount to snitching. But as I told him, whenever someone attacks and accuses you, you have the right and a duty to defend yourself. Todd tho’, was an absolutist in many of his beliefs and, I think he still held residual love in his heart for his ex-wife; although I know he equally hated her for what she did to him, too. From what Todd told me, he believed his ex-wife intentionally left the baby’s blanket against the space heater on her way out the door to run errands, with the intent to kill both him and the children. Todd and I talked a lot about this issue. When my first daughter was born she somehow bonded to me instead of her mama. When we brought her home from the hospital she wouldn’t sleep anywhere but on my chest with her face against my neck, in the crook, and her arms wrapped around my neck. Even my mama noticed that she’d really light up when I came in the room and her eyes followed my every movement. She’d start cooing, gurgling, kicking and giggling until I’d go pick her up. I taught her to crawl, to walk, to talk. Her first words were “da-da” and “patty cake” because I always played that with her. My wife felt left out and got resentful, said I didn’t love her anymore and started acting out, did all kinds of stuff to hurt me, to get back at me because she felt I’d abandoned her. I got put in jail for fines and while there she secretly divorced me and got my parental rights terminated by declining child support. Then she left my daughter in her grandmother’s care so I couldn’t get to her and she went out partying with all my male friends, sleeping with them and throwing it up in my face, flaunting it in front of me every chance she got. I had to get away from her so I moved first to Savannah, Georgia – then to Missouri and on to Texas. Todd had a similar situation with his wife. He became so wrapped with his kids that she felt neglected and like he didn’t want her any more. He said she accused him of that, often. He took refuge in the kids. I read a book that says this sort of dynamic develops often in people who marry young and have kids. A baby is a huge responsibility. With me, I’d helped my mama raise my little sisters, so I was well versed in Baby 101 and I became smitten with my daughter and took over. I see my mistakes very clearly now, but I was blind to them, then. I should’ve spent time with my wife and involved her more, too. But I was only 19 and just overwhelmed with being a dad for the first time. A baby’s love is total and, totally consuming, too. Judge Jackson says Todd stomped his wife’s stomach, trying to cause a miscarriage. That was a tale his wife told, I think, but I do not believe, there was any validity to it. It’s been too long for me to remember all the specifics, but I think Todd caught her messing around on him and when she came up pregnant there was a question of paternity that led to fights. They’re two young, wild, partying, rock-n-roll hillbilly kids. Hormones are strong at that age and it takes two to tango. Sure they fussed and fought.
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Todd felt guilty over his kids deaths because he’d been drinking, he didn’t wake up soon enough; when he did, he was still groggy, half-drunk, hung over and not on top of the situation. When he tried to stand up and his hair caught fire, it scared him badly. Survival instinct took over and he ran for the door. He said when he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, air really rushed into the house, he heard a big “whommmpp!!”and felt compression. It blew him out into the front yard. He felt he should’ve kept trying to get the kids out before he opened the door but the smoke was so thick and choking and he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He was starting to see stars. Incidentally, that’s why there was no smoke inhalation noted on his blood gases test – he told me the smoke was so thick, oily and black he knew if he tried to take a breath he’d die then and there. There was no question Todd loved his kids. When his wife’s lover’s harassments got bad, from him and his friends, Todd had his mom make multiple duplicates of his photos of his kids and family, so that when they destroyed them, he’d just ask his mom to send new ones. If any of you out there had seen what I have and knew how Todd suffered all the years he was on death row, you’d know Todd Willingham did not kill his kids. No way. That man cried for those kids until the day he died and I know because I was on death watch with him! More telling is his final statement: “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit and for the last 12 years I have been persecuted for something I did not do”. That’s paraphrased from memory but I believe it’s complete and correct. Then he said something like, “From the dust of the earth I came and to dust I shall return, so the earth will become my throne. Hang in there, Road Dawg”. That last sentence was directed to Troy Kunkle, “TKO”, Todd’s #1 best friend forever here. I’d begged Todd to tell what he knew, to save his life, up until the night before his execution. But he told me that with them claiming accelerants were used and it being his wife, their mama, a woman potentially involved, nobody would believe him. I see now, that is true. He also said it’s possible she accidentally left blankets or something too close to the heater but he believed it was knowing. After his statement and prefacing it with “The only” then cussing his wife until he died, I think it’s pretty clear what he believed. The exact same witch huntery that killed Todd Willingham, the state is using to try to kill me. At trial, then D.A. John Mann tried to say I had a “long history of violence”. Oh, yeah? Not even. A long history of “drug abuse”, too. Nope. Only two incidents were alleged at trial that had any validity. The first alleged that I kicked Pampa Police Department officer Danny Lance. The only other officer there, Alan Smith, stated he was securing my personal property when he heard me cry out, he turned to see me flying backwards into the drunk tank with Danny on top of me and he said I kicked him. I didn’t, but I put my knee up to stop him crushing me and he fell onto it. But yeah, I sure did that much to defend myself. Danny and I had a history. He once arrested me on a fake D.W.I. charge to try to coerce me into acting as his C-I and busting a friend of mine. I wasn’t about to do that. So I took the marked “buy money” he gave me and skipped town. He had to pay it back and got demoted from narc detective to patrolman for it. Then he was drunk at Chatauqua and we stole his patrol car keys and gave ‘em to some kids, who stole his patrol car and flipped it into a creek. This cop in East Texas claimed I threatened to kill him, but I was drunk and just talkin’ smack to him after he’d beat me up and my dog, too. Left my dog on the side of the road. He made it home, though, 8 miles up the road. Smart dog. Obviously they didn’t think it was any big deal at the time. Soon as I sobered up, they let me go on my own recognizance and later dismissed the charge. 3
My ex-wife claimed I “slung her around” our home by her arm, slung her down on the couch, put my knee in her chest and threatened her. Boy, I sure did all that, every bit of it. It was that or die, because she was trying to kill me. I did not hurt her, though. My ex-wife, Connie Neighbors, grew up with my now deceased girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby – the one I’m here for, falsely accused of killing. They grew up near some air force or army base and both had military boyfriends. Something happened between them involving Connie’s boyfriend and Connie threatened to kill Twila – this was when they were just out of high school. They split up and lived separate lives until Connie came to Pampa in 1992, Autumn. After Connie and I divorced I still had no idea she knew Twila until 2 weeks before the murders. That summer before we split in 1993, Connie was on Prozac. Her doctor put her on Trazodone as well. The two drugs don’t mix well at all. They cause people to go on psychotic, murderous rages. I went to Amarillo for a car show and sale. When I came home, Connie had turned into Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”, but worse. She attacked me with a carving knife just like the one “Michael Meyer” used on Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in the movie “Halloween”, one of the all time cult “slasher flicks”. Anyway, Connie told me she was gonna run that knife through my heart, then use it to “Bobbitize” me - a la Wayne and Loreena Bobbit, who were pretty popular back then. She cut off his willy, remember? Connie was gonna cut off mine the same way. To get the knife away from her, I had to grab her wrist as she came at me. I used her arm to whiplash her into the wall and when she bounced back I slung her backwards onto the couch, put my knee in her chest to hold her down, used both hands to mash the pressure point on her wrist and told her, if she didn’t let go I’d break it. I would have, too. She was spittin’ and cussin’ like a demon possessed her, right out of The Exorcist. Scared me to death. Soon as she dropped the knife, she started crying and blubbering saying, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me”. Well, I knew - she was nuts. I left her that night. I’d just sharpened all the kitchen knives in our giant block knife holder the weekend before, like 15 – 18 of ‘em. I look over, the block is empty. Meaning she done hid the knives all over the house. No way I’m staying there. That’s a death trap waiting on a place to happen. You see why I think my wife had something to do with the murders of my girlfriend and her sons? That situation with my wife occurred in April, 1993 on the weekend of my birthday. Fortunately it happened before my hand was injured in June/July or, otherwise I’d have been a dead man. There was a story in People Magazine’s March 31st, 2008 issue called Madness and Forgiveness, on pages 105 – 107 of that issue, about a man named David Crespi who went into a psychotic rage and killed his own 3 year old twin daughters Tessara and Samantha by stabbing them with kitchen knives just as Scooter and Randy were killed in my case. David Crespi’s outward appearance was that he was well adapted but his inner private existence was dark and hellish. Black, obsessive thoughts consumed him. “I had suicidal thoughts and fears of losing my job,” he said. “I also had homicidal thoughts, but I didn’t believe that would ever happen.” In 2004 David went for counseling with a social worker who consulted a psychiatrist; they put him on Paxil. By early 2006 he’s stopped taking it and his general practitioner put him on Trazodone - which treats anxiety and depression – plus the sleep aid Ambien. Seven days before the tragedy, the original psychiatrist added generic Prozac to his medications. On 01-19-06 he and his wife went to see the counselor again. “He is scaring me; he gets up in the middle of the night and walks back and forth”, she said. But David’s therapists didn’t hear about his homicidal thoughts; as he 4
later told police, he never shared them with anyone. The social worker gave David a different sleep aid and sent him home. The next day he, on medical leave from work, stayed home with the twins who were sick with colds. His wife went to the hairdresser at 12:05 p.m. When she returned at 1:20 p.m. there were police and squad cars everywhere. David found Samantha in the kitchen and stabbed her to death with a butcher knife. He caught up with Tessara in the bedroom and killed her there. David got double life. In prison David was diagnosed by a prison psych as having bi-polar disorder. He couldn’t plead insanity because he admitted he knew what he did was wrong, he was just compelled and couldn’t stop himself. It is well known that combining uppers and downers simultaneously will run you crazy. That’s what happened to the “Fatal Vision” killer, Jeffery MacDonald. He was a green beret doctor and surgeon who was taking a combo drug made in the ‘70’s called eskatrol spansules by Smith, Kline and French, (SKF). They were Dextroamphetamine and Compazine. The Compazine was supposed to mellow the hard wire of the Dex. They took it off the market because there were too many reports of murders by people who took it and other psychotica associated with it. I’m quite certain Uncle Bob killed Twila, Scooter and Randy. But I’m equally certain that Connie was somehow involved, too. I think maybe she was lurking outside the house, stalking. Maybe she saw/heard Bob killing Twila, then went in and joined him, I don’t know. I know Scooter said, “They’re coming back” when he kept saying we had to get out of there, after he got me up. 10-21-09 Well… I’d quit writing on this for a moment to deal with some other matters. Meanwhile the mail came and, lo and behold, here’s Todd’s wife in an affidavit just after his death, saying he confessed guilt. First of all, let me tell you how I know what she says in this affidavit and story 10-15-09 by Janet Jacobs in the Corsicana Daily Sun “Affidavits Dispute Claims of Innocence” is an outright fabrication and lie by the Kuykendalls. I was out there with Todd during his visit with her. We’d discussed at length trying to get her to make an admission we could use. So I was keen on it and watching her. I listened to what he told her; as Allan Turner wrote in his story about Roy Pippin (which was a lie) I was “eavesdropping on their conversation”. Todd was intentionally talking loud enough for others to hear. Here’s her story based on what I read: “She stated that after visiting him for about an hour and 45 minutes he told her he set the fire because he knew she was going to leave him in January ’92 like she said and that she was going to divorce him and he figured if he did this she would stay with him and she could get her tubes untied and they could start another family and that he wanted her to write the [parole] board a letter because he did not want to die”. Todd was far from retarded. He had plenty enough sense to know, if he made the above sort of statement it’d seal his fate. Besides that, it doesn’t even make any sense. Why would Todd think killing his own kids would bring their mother back to him”? You know, most women look up to their men as their partner and protector. Probably, especially with this girl’s co-dependent mentality, even if she didn’t know the first thing about how it really happened she’d be resentful toward him for failing to save their children.
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After reading this story and knowing what I do, I am more convinced than ever that Stacy Kuykendall is a liar, that she killed those kids and meant to kill Todd, that she was cheating on him, that she was going to leave him and that she kept close to those officers who terrorized him all those years because she had to be vigilant in case Todd ever began making waves and telling it on her. Todd did ask her to make a confession and write a letter to the parole board alright, but about her own guilt, not his. He told her she could say it was unintentional. He just wanted her to tell the truth. That’s why she came to see him, to see whether he was of a mind to tell it on her. That’s why she told that story and wrote an affidavit; she was trying to head Todd off at the pass, in case he actually made a statement on the gurney which implicated her. That’s why she wanted it in the record. I have to admit, at the time I somewhat doubted Todd was telling me the truth. It’s just hard to believe a mother would kill her own kids. However, because of the dynamic extant in that house, she viewed them as “Todd’s kids” and was as resentful toward them as she was toward him, because she felt left out, abandoned by them. Two other things; One, Todd told me he moved the car off the carport for very practical reasons. It had a half tank of gas in it and would’ve blown up soon as the fire got to it. It was just common sense. Being a mechanic myself, I can easily see him thinking that way. When you’re in the shop and about to weld something or use a cutting torch, you get all flammable solvents and liquids out of the area, other combustibles, etc. When you’re welding underneath a car, on the frame, etc., you’re very conscious of the gas lines, brake lines and such. Todd was a mechanic. Two: the refrigerator by the back door – the back door of that house was flimsy and one of the locks busted, Todd told me. He said they’d put the upright freezer against the door to keep people out, not to trap people inside as the state alleged. That was rather stupid of them to allege, anyway. Todd was the only adult in the house at the time of the fire so, he wanted to block himself in? When Todd told me things over all those years and we discussed it for hours on end, I never imagined it would end up like this. Unbelievable. I guess ol’ Dickmire didn’t like my NHHN #14 too much. You notice how, right after I put that out on September 30th, by October 12th ol’ Dickmire got his lackey Mike Ward writin’ another story, “Cell Phone Smuggling to Inmates Still on the Rise”. You talk about “internally inconsistent” stories, this is one. “Two weeks ago, reacting to the continued flood of smuggled cell phones, officials ordered 14 (15, 17 in various other stories, depending on which one you choose to believe) of Texas’ toughest prisons lockdown and 35,000 convicts searched”. It was said in all other stories that these 14, 15, 17 prisons were the ones where the most contraband had been found or, had the worst smuggling problems. So, why was Polunsky Unit locked down again after we’d just had a lockdown/shakedown July 06th – 21st? On September 16th – October 01st? According to Ward’s own story, “Cell phone seizures plummeted … At Polunsky this year, only 23 cell phones had been confiscated (remnants – those that somehow made it through the other shakedowns) down from 193 last year”. So Polunsky is not a unit with the least contraband problem now, not the worst. Of course that, and the fact that no cell phones were found on death row during either of these searches, illustrates the fact that prison administrators were only kow-towing to ol’ Dickmire, over Tabler.
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“The fact that the numbers are so high (contraband confiscations) indicates we still have a big problem” i.e. I’m really looking forward to prolonged harangues in the media and lots of ‘vote for me’! I’m getting tough on crime agitprop, says Dickmire. You go, boy. Ha/ha. My best to you all. Hank 999143 Polunsky Unit H W Hank Skinner 3872 FM 350 South Livingston TX 77351-8580 http://www.hankskinner.org h.w.skinner@gmail.com hwskinner@yahoo.com
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