This is a true story. I have been working on this story now for 4 1/2 years. I am not settled on the title yet. Above is one version. Another is “A Killer Hiding in our Midst.” But the story will be the same. It is a sad story of a wasted life and the chase by law enforcement that arrived too late to prevent a tragic murder. The book begins with acknowledgements of all the people who have helped me write it to which names are being added and I am not ready to disclose just yet. So, let us begin. Comments welcome.
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The Criminal Mind
Doctor Samenow in his book, Inside the Criminal Mind, exhorts us to remember that “… we must begin with the clear understanding that the criminal chooses crime. He chooses his associates, his way of life, the kinds of crime he commits. He rejects society long before society rejects him; he is victimizer, not victim. The criminal values people to the extent that they can be manipulated; he believes he is entitled to whatever he desires; he does not justify his actions to himself.”[i]
1 Stanton E. Samenow, Ph.D. Inside the Criminal Mind. New York : Times Books, a Division of Random House, Inc. , 1984.
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FORWARD
“How is it that you didn’t know? How could you not see these things about him?” Michele Quinones leaned her head slightly to the side as she repeated the same questions that had been put to her by those she thought she knew and whom she thought knew her.
Her face was expressionless; however, her head and right hand responded with a slight rise and then dip as she placed emphasis on each “you” echoing the questions put to her repeatedly in disbelief by family members and friends.
It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon, April 14th, 2013, and the one-time girlfriend of Delmer Smith, an attractive, intelligent, forty-two year old woman, sat with me at a small table outside the Panera Bread Company in the Coco Plum Plaza in North Port, Florida, drinking iced coffee. We had just finished lunch at the sandwich shop where we met to discuss her relationship with a man who terrorized women living alone in Sarasota and Manatee Counties in 2009.
She paused in her thoughts, her unblinking, dark eyes held mine in their grasp. I could see in her gaze that she was hurting deep within.
“That is what they asked me. You know? Over and over again.” She looked away and down, and then added, “It wasn’t so much a question,” she said, “but more of a demand.”
(More to follow tomorrow.)
THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN 
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