Journal Notes

Chapter four of the Libbie Custer book has George and his capable wife in Texas. Nothing of great military importance happened during Custer’s time there. Libbie becomes a better horseback rider, George hones his skills as a leader and both meet Captain Frederick Benteen for the first time. Benteen knows of Custer and hates him. He dislikes Libbie almost as much. Given the animosity Benteen had for the Custers it’s not hard to imagine that he would eventually abandon George and his “band of brothers” on the field of battle. Benteen shouldn’t have been surprised he was partially blamed for what happened at the Little Big Horn. This has been one of the most interesting stories I’ve ever had the privilege to research and I’m anxious to continue working on it. While getting ready for work this morning I happened onto one of the most precious gifts I ever received. Years ago, Trenna Tozer, one of the little girls I taught in Wednesday night Bible study class, gave me a plastic splatter cover for use when you place foods in the microwave. It’s a simple item, but this little girl had very little to purchase a gift with. She gave it to me right after my brother had been arrested and I was very low. That plastic splatter cover is extremely special to me. Trenna is in high school now and just as dear as always. I’ll never forget her and would never part with the plastic splatter cover. It reminded me then as it does now that God is good. Elizabeth Custer wanted to believe the same thing, but life is hard and I can appreciate that. She struggled with her faith too. Further research on my part will reveal if she ever received a gift from anyone in her travels to remind her of God’s faithfulness in the midst of troubles. I can only hope she did.

I received microfilm of Elizabeth Custer’s journals from Yale University yesterday and it reads like the diary an 11 year-old girl would have written. Her father gave her the journal for her 10th birthday in April 1853 with instructions to “keep and preserve a record of her life.” Elizabeth didn’t use the journal until her 11th birthday. She felt she had nothing of interest to say until then. After reading one of the entries from February 24, 1854, I think she should have held off a few months at least. It read, “Have been making underclothes for my larger doll.” Day to day life isn’t always filled with exciting events or insight?unless of course you’re Anne Frank. I decide to compare the journal entry I made in my own diary on February 24, 1972. I was 11, same age as Elizabeth in 1854. “Oh, how I wish Dale Thoeni noticed me. Maybe if I didn’t have big teeth and a big nose he might. My mother said I’ll grow into my teeth and nose and that Dale would one day notice me for my other qualities. Parents always say things like that. What other qualities?! When are these other qualities supposed to arrive?” Elizabeth Custer’s journal goes on to describe her life leading up to the days of the Civil War. My journal describes a list of local beauticians who refused to cut anyone else’s hair like Farrah Fawcett’s. I’m grateful that Elizabeth kept a record of her life and times. It’s a wonderful piece of history. It’s right that an institution as prestigious as Yale would have her journal. My journal, which I have maintained since I was eight, is safely tucked away in a cedar chest under my staircase. No one is going to go looking for it unless there’s a toilet paper shortage. Sure, maybe I wasn’t as astute as Elizabeth Custer, but I did one thing she never would do. I dotted the I in Dale’s last name with a heart. My journal won’t ever make it into a libraries special reading section, but it’s been a wealth of humor for my friends and I. And maybe that was what I was suppose to “keep and preserve.”

I will never get past what I’ve done. My brother was terrified and looked to me for help and I told him to plead guilty. It was wrong and there is no way to undo the action. So, here are a few words of advise from a sister who convinced her brother to plead guilty and is now serving a 20 year sentence. It’s too late for my brother, but NEVER plead guilty unless the trial is just not worth it (e.g., some minor traffic). The plea bargain, if a reduced sentence, can be approximated after a court finding of guilty anyway. It is also possible that unknown circumstances can turn up. In my brother’s case, there were multiple ways that further psych evidence could be produced. What matters most, and what the majority of lawyers will never tell you, is that a “guilty” judgment has lasting impact on the person’s life. It will affect every aspect of that person’s life, and can make it much more difficult for the person should the same or another person make a charge. The hard part is convincing the defense attorney. A for-fee attorney already has incentive, but a public defender will merely try the case by rote unless inspired. The explanation is in a criminal defense attorney’s justification for “getting criminals off”: “If I get someone off, I’ve made the system work and that benefits the rest of us. If I lose, then a criminal was punished. The difficult part is where I have an innocent defendant. If my client is innocent, then his freedom depends on how I do my job.” Pray you get an attorney like this. I hired J.R. Hobbs out of Kansas City, Missouri. He didn’t care about my brother or my family – only money. A public defender will just do a bare minimum, unless the public defender is convinced that the person is innocent. If the defender is convinced, the defender will do what he can because he/she doesn’t want an innocent person to be punished on the lawyer’s account. It is not always easy to convince someone of innocence because of the common protestation of innocence. Often it is necessary to point out one item which contradicts the charges. (Example: photos showing no marks on a person “kicked 4 or 5 times in the head” by a 250 lb. man.) Once a first piece of evidence shows up, the rest will follow. It is not uncommon for garbage evidence to be used by the prosecutor. It is also common among some departments to ignore the requirement to provide exculpatory evidence (“Brady evidence”, Brady v. MD). A prosecution analysis of a defendant is not the end-all. In this country, a person is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Procedures are used to insure easy prosecution and there is a disincentive for the prosecutor to make a reasoned determination of culpability. It is up to the citizen, often at great expense, difficulty, and often luck, to prove innocence. But the consequences of a guilty plea are too great.

The meeting yesterday with the attorney resulted in more bad news. It’s hard to hear that there is no help to be had and that my brother will die in prison. The sticking point is that he pled guilty – a course I told him to take because our attorney, JR Hobbs out of Kansas City informed me that there was a 97% conviction rate in cases like Rick’s. Of course, the lawyer tells us that after he’s collected more than $100,000. There was no money left to go to another lawyer then and Hobb’s statement and actions proved he wasn’t willing to give it his all to help my brother. Given all of that I opted for the plea. It’s all my fault. Retaining an attorney who didn’t care, convincing my brother to take a plea – that’s on me. It’s been five years and I’m still trying to undo my actions. I hope death comes quickly for him. I’d pray about it more, but it seems obvious God is somewhere else.

When Libbie Custer left her parent’s home in Monroe, Michigan with her new husband, George Custer, she was excited about all the possibilities ahead of them. Nineteen days after they were married, however, George had to return to his cavalry division engaged in heated battles with the Confederate Army. They wrote one another often and when letters were few and far in between, Libbie took to reading every newspaper article about her husband. He was a Civil War hero. As youngest general in the Union Army he led his division to one victory after another. The press loved him. Libbie loved him, the man and the hero became one in the same. Libbie was captivated by him. I liken it to being married to a superstar politician such as John Edwards, the press loved him at first. It was hard to separate the real man from the glowing individual the press reported on. Eventually truth found Edwards out as it did for Custer, but for this moment in their new life together, all Libbie saw was the man the newspaper accounts helped create. I’m fascinated with this story and eager to continue on with it. Alas, I won’t be able to do much work on the book today because I’m going to see another attorney about my brother. I’m dealing with a warden who has told me that “he doesn’t care about the inmates – whether they live or die. “I’d prefer they die quickly. I’m not here to educate, rehabilitate, or make sure any medical need is addressed. I’m here to punish. And make no mistake about it, I will punish.” That attitude makes me furious. Not just at the prison officials and all the other officials who allow that to happen, but at the people who planned the demise of my brother. While going through a research book yesterday I found a letter my terrified brother had written to me almost two years ago. It read simply this, “Please ask God to come quickly. Tell him not to send his Son. This is no place for children.” Two days later he was beaten and raped. Last night as I walked around a store doing some early holiday shopping, my mind settled on how bitter I have become over this incident. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the day the woman who accused my brother of such vile acts, and her mother who helped conceive the idea, get what’s coming to them. My soul is dark and brooding. I am troubled and lost. In that moment I realize that I am evil, cursed, unrepentant for thinking such things. I know that the Lord can transform this incident into a blessing. But my fear is that I am so far gone in my dark thoughts that I can’t be saved. And why would he want to? Some souls are malformed. Perhaps this struggle has left me with just that. I pray, but at times feel so disconnected because I have become so jaded.

I’ve noticed that a number of visitors to my site are interesting in wild west costumes. So, I’ve got an offer I hope you won’t pass up. In exchange for signing up for my email newsletter I will send you a copy of the book How the West Was Worn. Just send me an email asking for the title and I’ll get it to you. Happy Halloween!

My real father left my brothers, mother, and I when I was about 7 years old. Prior to that he stopped in long enough to create trouble for my mother and take whatever money she had earned to support us because her husband of 15 years refused to do so. I have seen this man twice since becoming a grown woman. When I asked him about why he left and never looked back, he claimed to not remember his bad actions. Which only heaped craziness on life-changing rejection. His financial contribution to my brothers and I come to a little over 4 thousand dollars. Five years ago today I phoned to ask him for help with my brother Rick because the lawyer’s fees were outrageous. He told me then that he “had a family now and we’re not it.” He remarried a woman who had children and invested in them. His name is Richard Lea Shields. Last I heard he lives in Ft Worth, Texas. I often wonder if he googles my brothers and I. I often wonder if he wonders about us. Obviously the answer is no, but I can’t help but wonder. The bad people in this world always win and are never sorry.

The plan yesterday was to work on the Elizabeth Custer book, but I had to put it aside to review the final pages of the Buffalo Bill book that had come from the editor. My editor sent the pages via an attachment to an email and it took me two hours just to get it opened and then another hour to print the material out. I am lousy with computers. Even the relatively new computer I have, which was supposed to be easier to learn, confuses me. Computer technology moves faster than John Goodman going after a Cinnabun. No matter what computer you buy, now matter how much you spend, by the time you get it to your car, it’s an eight-track player. True, computers have made it possible for us to do our jobs much more quickly and efficiently. And what do we do with our newly acquired scads of leisure time? We sit on-line for hours in chat rooms, participating in imbecilic exchanges with people we wouldn’t be caught dead talking to in person. Just when did all this computer stuff happen anyway? You know, one day I was playing Pong, the next thing I know Stuey, the gas meter guy with the eye patch, has an uplink to a satellite on his tool belt. Even our cars are computer complete. I’ve got a global positioning device in my truck. Hey, listen, I’m going to the store for milk, I’m not Magellan tracking around the Cape of Good Hope, all right? Tell me, O global positioning device, where can Ponce De Chris locate the 7-Eleven in my neighborhood? I must secure nectar of the cow lest my king be disappointed, and so I have brought much silver and gold and colorful beads to appease the keeper of the Slim Jims behind the counter, who appears to be in a wretched mood when I beseech him to avert his gaze from his Twittering. Okay, maybe I’m a little rebellious when it comes to the whole technological blitzkrieg. Nothing serious. I’m not going to stop shaving my legs and live in a dirt-floored Fotomat in Quiet Lonerville, Montana. It’s just that everywhere I look, there’s such a dependence on synthetic forms of communication. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned face-to-face insincerity. As for my computer skills, there hasn’t been anyone this ineffective at a keyboard since Susan Dey was in The Partridge Family. That’s why I prefer to use a Dixon No.2 pencil and a giant legal pad to do my writing.

The trip to Washington D.C. was a positive one. I met with a few politicians who promised to look into helping my brother. We’ll see. I do appreciate the process of being able to meet face to face with elected officials and voicing your concerns. Up until this weekend, I’d only read about such things. I located some important letters Libbie Custer wrote to George while in D.C.. I’m anxious to get back into writing today and adding the find to the text of the book. Hopefully this week there will be some forward movement with the western Thunder Over the Prairie. Walter Hill is still set to direct and there has been interest in the project from actors Steve Zahn and Ethan Hawke. The producers that optioned the book Playing for Time are meeting with a casting director this week. The process from book to script to actual production is a long one. I don’t know that the book The Cowboy and the Senorita will ever see the studio lights, but I believe strongly that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans’ story should be told. I think it’s particularly important now that their museum is closing. With all that in mind?I’m off to work.

I’m off to Washington D.C. today. I’ll be meeting with a few politicians about my brother, the poor treatment of federal prisons, the number of rapes that happen inside, and the rise in false allegation of child molestation. I plan to spend some time at the National Archives as well researching Libbie Custer’s story. No matter where I am or what I’ll be doing my thoughts and prayers will be for my friends the Franks. They’ve been dealt a heavy blow, but have praised God through it all. Oh, to be that kind of Christian.