Bergstrom James Edward - Evil Beside Her

The wait, like Septembers typically hot Texas weather, was stifling.

What attracts one person to another has long fascinated poets,

That night on the phone, James told Linda a little

Pearland, Texas, where the Bergstroms settled, was founded in 1882,

Of course, no one in the Martinez family knew of

When James arrived at Devoe & Raynolds on the following Monday

The week after James and Lindas first date, the phone

In January of 1986, James submitted a request for a

In October 1986 James Bergstrom returned to Houston with all

Lindas initial disappointment over the apartment disappeared quickly. She discovered

The apartment seemed empty after James left. In a strange

At six the next morning, Linda drove to the base

Lindas prediction that the patrol would give her and James

Thanksgiving came and passed. Linda roasted a turkey with stuffing,

When the Ohio pulled out of Puget Sound on January

A month after their hasty move, James was on patrol

January 30, 1989: The Ohio pulled out of Puget Sound.

Wheeler was plainly worried. He had reason to be. Like

The next day, all of Central Kitsap County buzzed about

In his then seventeen years in law enforcement, Undersheriff Wheeler

As soon as shed handed the detective the receipt for

That Wheeler and his staff hadnt been able to charge

After that night, all Lindas doubts disappeared. In a visceral,

In mid-June 1989, James Bergstrom pleaded no contest to a

Linda and James Bergstroms twenty-four-hundred-mile drive back to Houston from

At one time or another, we all make some sort

At first, Allen Gibson, Caesar, and James Bergstroms other co-workers

In his 1992 book Out of the Shadows, Patrick Carnes,

It was obvious that James Bergstrom had reverted back to

After that October blowup, James and Linda moved out of

Living with James Bergstrom took an incredible toll on Linda.

In the fall of 1991, doctors scheduled Ginos wife, Benita

Mrs. Bergstrom, a man with an East Texas drawl said

In the rush from Hoggens unequivocal identification, Gallier had a

Depression had toyed with Linda Bergstrom over the years, but

By February 1992, fantasy ruled James Bergstroms life. The dark

In March, Linda visited Colt Hargraves in the hospital, where

At 3:30 P.M. on March 16, 1992, Sandy Colyard gossiped

On Friday, March 20, 1992four days after the attack on

Linda Bergstrom would always remember March 1992 as a nightmare.

On Sunday night, March 22, a ski-masked intruder stalked the

Tonry was working a homicide investigation that Friday afternoon when

When the first newspaper account of Bergstroms arrest ran in

The two campsprosecution and defenseformed quickly after James Bergstroms arrest.

The phone rang continually in Linda Bergstroms apartment in the

Jury selection in the sentencing trial of James Bergstrom commenced

When the gavel sounded in Judge Walkers courtroom the following

Chris, Tina, James C., Irene, and Maria Bergstrom refused requests for interviews. Accounts of events and conversations involving them were principally reconstructed from interviews with Linda, James, and Adelaide Bergstrom, and public records. James Bergstrom has neither confessed to nor been convicted of any rapes or attempted sexual assaults in Washington State. The account of his confession to such crimes is as recounted by Linda Bergstrom.

In addition, some physical descriptions and names have been changed throughout this book, including Lindas maiden name, those of all James Bergstroms victims, and some who played minor roles in his story: Caesar, Mack, John, Sam McDonald, Eddie Smith, Sally and Bill Rogers, Jane Richards, Penny Jacobs, Gayle Thomas, Diane Siler, and Colt Hargraves.

September 30, 1992

The wait, like Septembers typically hot Texas weather, was stifling. Inside the courtroom, witnesses, victims, and reporters clustered together. Their strained murmurs reminded Linda Bergstrom of mourners at a wake. In fact, much of the scene felt funereal. Scanning the courtroom, she noticed her mother-in-law, petite, fiftyish, with salt-and-pepper hair and a heart-shaped face, huddled with her husband in a center pew. Like his son, James C. Bergstrom was slight in stature, a spare, angular man, but with a roof of white hair and rheumy-eyed behind thick-lensed glasses. Although he usually had a ramrod-straight, military bearing, this day James C. appeared stooped and tired. Linda wondered fleetingly if she was supposed to feel sorry for the Bergstroms. She didnt.

Then Linda glanced toward the judges imposing bench and the narrow defense table where her ex-husband sat eerily still. Ex-husband. A reassuring designation, she mused. As she knew he wouldhe had throughout much of the two-day hearingJames Edward Bergstrom assessed her icily, his dark hair cut short, his hazel eyes hollows in a face ashen from six months in a sunless Houston jail cell. As she watched, a bailiff approached James, took him by the arm, and pulled him to his feet to take him to a holding cell while the jury deliberated. As he sauntered off, James grinned at Linda, catlike. She spun away, but not before her skin chilled. Its almost over, she thought, almost over.

One hour passed, then another. She sat alone, shunning the television, magazine, and newspaper reporters scattered throughout the room. There had been no actual trial; James Bergstrom had pleaded guilty on five counts. What the jury deliberated was his sentence. It seemed preposterous, but the court-appointed defense attorney was asking for probation, arguing these were his first convictions and that a Texas prison would only turn James Bergstrom into an even more brutal man. You never know what a jury will do, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case had cautioned Linda. Even in the guarded safety of the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, she was frightened. If James was released, she knew he would want revengeagainst her.

What if they let him out? She shuddered. They cant let him out.

Seated in one of the courtrooms massive oak pews, Linda cut a diminutive figure. At twenty-nine, she had shoulder-length chestnut brown hair falling softly around large, almond-shaped eyes. She wasnt stop-traffic pretty, but lithe and appealing with an unmistakable aura of vulnerability, detectable in her slight frown, the shy downturn of her dark eyes.

But there was another side to Lindaa flinty determination, the strength she relied on throughout the seven torturous years she was married to James. Without it, she could never have endured the endless abuse, the physical battering and its emotional and psychological carnage. But the worst was learning something so repugnant, so vile, about her husband that acknowledging it always made her stomach roilher husband, her daughters father, was a rapist.

The thought of it filled her with such anger, such hatred, such confusion and humiliation, she felt her face flash hot. Once she discovered who she was married to, Linda had refused to remain silent. She would have shouted the truth from a street corner in downtown Houston, if that would have stopped him. Laughing, James told her to tell the world. He wasnt worried. No one will listen to you, he taunted. For a long time, he was right.