Part 1: Introductions | Part 2: The Drowning | Part 3: Ty Left Alone | Part 4: The Escape | Part 5: The Murder | Part 6: Prison | Part 7: Epilogue
Part 7
He decided that he first needed to take care of his drug problem and joined the Narcotics Anonymous program within the prison.
Before I go further I need to go back for a bit.
I have often wondered if Ty was on the spectrum or at least had ADHD. He couldn’t abide lots of sound. Music was just noise to him and often times life with his girls was just too noisy and overwhelming. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was sound reactive, especially since we know (despite what RFKjr “thinks”) that there is a genetic/hereditary component to autism and two of Ty’s grandchildren have been diagnosed with autism. (He did always have ear plugs in prison.)
My Dad had dyslexia and after taking a long look at his dad’s life decided that he must have had it too. When I told this to Aunt Nancy you’d have thought I was accusing Grandpa of serial murder. The way she reacted was so extreme. So I didn’t broach much on the subject of learning disabilities or my thoughts on grandma’s sexuality with her or any of my aunts and extended family.
Dad’s siblings called him “stupid,” growing up and in school he was shamed by having to wear a dunce cap. Grandma, his mom, probably called him stupid too. When my parents discovered that my kindergarten teacher had put a dunce cap on my head, they got her fired.
It was June who figured out that L.D. had dyslexia after I described it to her. I have it, and two of my sons have it. After Dad died Margaret discovered all of our Dad’s legal pads, and they were filled with plans and tons of measurements and calculations. It seemed as if my Dad’s brain was constantly running. That and all of Dad’s unfinished projects lead her to surmise that Dad had undiagnosed ADHD. Which lead me to take a long look at habits I had and the knowledge of myself that I would hit a project hard for 2 or 3 weeks and then be bored with it and abandon it. The acceptance that I must have ADHD too made so many things about my life fall into place. My life and my history finally made some sense. Certain things weren’t moral failings on my part, it was ADHD and I could constructively deal with it.
My same sons who have dyslexia also have ADHD and I have always suspected that one has high functioning autism, if not two. Maybe all my children are “neurospicy.”
Maybe additional knowledge of and if Ty had autism or any, or many learning disabilities would have had things fall into place for his life too.
/tangent
When I first started writing Ty I told him about when we were little how he used to follow Margaret around all the time at Grandma’s house. I overheard her complaining to Mom about how tired she was of having a shadow and being followed every place. I commented to myself “well that’s what you do to me.” I had also complained to Mom about her too. I’m older than Margaret by 3 years, and she’s older than Ty by 2 years.
So when Ty wrote to Margaret, to be cute, he signed the letter as “your stalker, Ty.” He told me, and immediately I was in a kind of panic (though I was giggling). I explained that when she was 18 she and her ex-husband had been in a car accident and had a head injury. She lost most of her memories about childhood (except as I would joke the file named “Clytemnestra is an asshole.” Those things she remembered.).
Me: I don’t know if she remembers.
Ty: Why didn’t you tell me?
Me: It never came up and I never thought you’d sign a letter that way! (we were both laughing at this point)
I got off the phone with him and called her. She did remember(!) so the possibility of being “weirded out” wasn’t there.
I don’t know if it was just Hutchinson Correctional Facility or all of Kansas prisons but the powers that be eliminated inmates getting their mail directly. All letters were(are) photocopied and the inmate got the photocopy. This was/is also true of any photographs. All photographs were(are) photocopied in black and white and that copy is given to the inmate, if they wanted the color photo they have to request it and were charged for it.
I basically stopped sending photos at that point. I’d embed some photos in my letter and he’d get them that way, He missed them and I missed sending them, but I didn’t want him nickeled and dimed. Which they do.
I am glad that when I discovered his prison number and sent him the first magazines that he was in Lansing and not Hutchinson, because Hutch may not have let my note go through.
That note meant the world to him, and he kept it. At the time he was suicidal, convinced that everyone had forgotten about him because "he truly was a monster." The note and the magazines came just in time to rescue him from that. Our letters moved him to a more solid ground.
He was given a tablet and told the books he could access were all free. But I had read here on Dailykos that inmates were charged for the time they spent reading the books. We decided to keep going the way we had been, he liked a physical copy of the book anyway.
Spout was out of print so the only books available were used and not acceptable due to the rules. I sent Ty two of Dale’s books The Drift House: The First Voyage, and The Garden of Lost and Found.
We also stopped or curtailed our video visitation when he went to Hutchinson. The room where video visits take place in HCF had no air conditioning and during our first visitation there TY got so hot he got sick. Summer video visits were out.
Undated photo/mugshot (but probably taken when he was arrested for murder) of “Ty”
During this time his eldest daughter had a baby, a little girl. Bringing his total number of grandchildren to 9. Ty redoubled his commitment to get out of prison clean. He very much wanted to be there for her.
Our 5th anniversary of writing to each other came and I sent him a package from Union Supply filled with pastries, and Folger’s coffee, which I knew he liked.
Because of the 10 book limit I didn’t send him his own copy of the blue book (Narcotics Anonymous 6th Edition) or N/A How it Works and Why. He had access to those books in the prison. I sent him N/A’s Just for Today: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts, and two Hazelden books Keep It Simple: Daily Meditations for Twelve Step Beginnings and Renewal and Day by Day: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts
There are also 12 step coloring books and I sent him one of those.
He was doing well, as were the group of N/A members in the prison and there was talk of getting them their own cell so that they could all support one another.
Then Ty did something stupid, he got high and rolled off the top bunk. The combination of whatever he took and rolling off the top bunk put his life in jeopardy. He was taken to the hospital and fought for his life. Not much information was getting out as to how he was doing and it’s not like anyone could just go in and visit.
He was there for about a month, and It took it’s toll, but he lived. The experience humbled him and made him very grateful. He thanked the prison guards, the nursing and hospital staff and anyone and everyone who had anything to do with saving his life.
When he finally called me, my first words were that I wasn’t going to verbally beat him up for what he did because I know how many times people fail before they get clean. To keep at it, keep trying. I was confident he’d make it one day.
He called again Thursday Feb 27, 2025, and I missed his call because I was at wound care.
He would never call back. That experience of almost losing his life weakened him significantly. On March 1, 2025 he was found “unresponsive” (dead) in his bunk. It was the same day, just 21 years later to when my other cousin, the one I “felt” when I got Ty’s first letter, the one completed his suicide, died.
His middle daughter called me to tell me. I told her I’d take care of informing the cousins. The first was my sister and like me she was in tears. She’s never been a letter writer but she was looking forward to having a relationship “with her stalker,” when he left prison.
I called June and spoke with her a bit. I also informed Dale.
All of our planned adventures, including going to that coastal town in Maine that shares his name, seeing New England and his desire to completely rewire my house (which it needs) ended too. He was just 4 years away from release. He may have beaten recidivism this time, but we’ll never know.
I have asked what his cause of death was, but I haven’t heard back. (Another inmate was also found unresponsive in his cell at HCF the same day and he died March 3, 2025.)
Just like Kansas media did covering the murder of Victor by Ty, they were wall to wall with Ty’s death. Every corner, no matter how far away from Hutchinson covered his death. He had to have his picture retaken when he came back from the hospital and that was the picture they used in the media and he looks rough.
The comments, the comments were brutal, at least one of his granddaughters and even my daughter tried to defend Ty and reframe what Victor actually was and did.
I realized then that there was public record of what Ty did to Victor, but there was no public record of what Victor did to Ty or any of his children. Except for a gay coming of age novel. Nothing wrong with that, but also not something an average Kansan would read. This diary in all its parts seeks to be that public record.
But how, you might ask, will this be a public record of what Victor did to Ty if I’m using pseudonyms?
If you’ve read “Sprout” cover to cover you already have Ty’s real name. It is how I discovered Dale in the first place. Dale dedicated “Sprout” to him:
dedication page of “Sprout”
“This book can only be dedicated to Lamoine Wiebe in the hope that he’ll always find his way back home.” — dedication of “Sprout”
Rest in peace and love Lamoine. I miss you
