Alice M Swafford - Conquering Darkness: Memoir of the Serial Killers Wife

Copyright 2011 Alice M. Swafford
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1463797303
isbn-13: 9781463797300
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61916-858-9

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is not a work of fiction. The recollection of the facts and the events as they occurred were achieved through painstaking reflections that are braided together by honesty and an intense desire, on the part of both authors, to arrive at the truth. For privacy reasons, some of the names have been changed.

Cover and eBook Designed by: Create Space

For information contact: womenswriteselfpub.com

Version 2011 8 16

We would like to thank Ronaldo Ali and Paityn Ali Lige for their patience, love and support during our life-altering experience.

[Thanks to Roberta L. Miller, our sister, auntie, and friend.

Thank you, Herbert B. Wood for all your love and support.

Karen L. Harris, thank you so much for being there for us.]

Thanks to Recordnet.com and Scott Smith for chronicling the State of Californias prosecution of William Jennings Choyce for crimes against the community of women .

and then there was this old woman,

A sturdy climber, who

Reached up towards the rapists eyes,

To pull down,

With lofty satisfaction-

Two more dirty marbles

For her heavy, heavy sack.

Table of Contents

It was August 7, 2008.

I remember walking up the cement stairs to the courthouse where my former spouse was being tried for THREE counts of capital murder and FOUR counts of rape. It was the first day of closing arguments in the guilt phase of the trial, and the weight of that reality sent a ripple of tremors through my body. I didnt know if I could hold myself up long enough to make it to the top. It seemed to take forever.

Finally, I made it to the area where everyone entering the courthouse was being screened for anything metal, especially guns. Damn , I thought, this is some serious shit! But I was ready for the first stage of my journey. Before I left home, I emptied my purse of everything except my drivers license, some mints and a pack of Kleenex. I also took off all my jewelry so that I could I pass though the detectors without a beep.

Mission accomplished!

After I made it to the court room, my legs felt a little lighter. I had been to this courthouse one other time when I was summoned to testify for the prosecution near the beginning of Williams trial. But that little bit of familiarity did nothing to calm the new set of nerves that were afire beneath my skin. I braced myself when I saw the back of my former spouses head. He was completely bald. His head was perfectly round and smooth like a caramel globe with a medium stem at the tip. He looked gentle from behind. Real gentle. Funny, but I had no memory of how William looked when I testified earlier. Was he bald then?

I sat down very, very softly.

The court clerk, who was sitting at her desk when I entered the courtroom, quietly rose to formally announce the entrance of Judge Judy Lofthus. She was presiding over her first capital murder trial: the case of the People of the State of California vs. William Jennings Choyce. Everyone stood up and remained standing until instructed to sit back down. Much respect. Silence cast a spell over the entire courtroom as the judge studied the documents on her desk. I wished I could read her mind. From what I had read in various news articles, the judge had worked very hard to ensure that William would indeed get a fair trial. Whats fair?

I wanted to know what was on my former spouses mind too. I wondered whether he could feel my presence, or whether he would look around at the perfect moment to catch my eye. Would his heart skip a beat? And then I wondered whether he had dreamed that we were a family again. This was the dream that haunted me and Crystal, the daughter I share with William.

Before entering the courtroom, I made up my mind to sit on the defenses side of the room. I hoped the families of Williams alleged victims (he had not been convicted at this point) would not think that I was making any statement other than I wanted to respect their space. I looked over at them once I sat down; there was such irrevocable loss written all over their faces. And even if they were scattered all over the courtroom, or in the hallways, I would have been able to pick them out one by one.

I prayed for them. Heavenly Father, keep them sound in their minds as they endure what no one should ever endure. Give them their justice as is your will. Amen.

And even though I am usually selfless when I say my prayers, I asked God to bless me too, because at times it felt like I was waning in and out of consciousness. When I finally accepted that my reality was static, and that God would keep me, I started thinking

How on the good Earth could this be happening to me?!

The words shouted out against the panoramic walls in my mind, time and time again. Never in a gazillion years would I have imagined myself, an all-African-American woman, sitting in the San Joaquin County, California Superior courthouse, or anybodys court for that matter, during the capital murder and rape trial of my former spouse. I had absolutely no desire to attend; necessity, such as it was, had forced my hand.

But, there I sat. I was demure by my own assessment and quietly uncertain of my ability to contain the terror and angst that worked on me. Mentally, I cautioned myself to take long, deep breaths whenever I felt that my nerves might exhaust me, or unhinge my mind and spirit from my body.

My seat was less than fifteen feet behind my former spouse, the Defendant, who, well-groomed and seemingly peacefully poised, looked straight ahead as the prosecutor, Thomas Testa, threw down a summary gauntlet of incriminating evidence against him in a case where the death penalty was being vigorously sought. For a significant moment, I entertained that I had stepped into a Stephen King movie or perhaps worse.

As the charges kept echoing in my head, so too did the old adage: Y OU CAN T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER .

At first, I vehemently refused to believe that a man, who I had known since we were teenagers, could morph back and forth between a modern day Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the hood. But it was likely he had done just that; he was a family man in the morning and a menace to a circle of selected women at night. Like Jack the Ripper, William was suspected of killing his share of prostitutes.

In the moments after learning that I had lived a significant part of my life with a serial rapist and maybe a killer as well, my little brain started creating a multi-textured collage of raw images. It was like an invasion. The visions were sometimes constant, then sometimes variant; but they were always psychedelically painful. I would see my husband on top of his victims; he was pawing, tearing and breathing like a greedy monster. Still, the women were perfect modelsthe symbols of how beauty can still exist in the death of an innocent. But there was nothing beautiful about what had happened to these women who could have been my sisters, or my kin in one way or another.

And in the backdrop of everything that was in my head, there was darkness.