Darla Sharp - Murder: Who Will Believe My Report?

The following stories are based on true events. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of the ones who were subjected to and witness to atrocities.

Chapter 1

The Grizzly Bear Dream

A s a young child, I was frightened by the dream, never knowing when it would come and never knowing if I was going to be too frightened to get out of bed and go to the bathroom.

During my childhood, I thought all children had the dream. Even in my adult life, I never questioned that others might not have had this dream. I assumed all had this dream, just as most had the falling dream.

At the age of forty-four I wakened suddenly from another dream, a different dream. It was at this moment in time that I understood that the grizzly bear dream was not a universal dream. It was at this moment in time I understood that this grizzly was determined for me and me alone.

Trailers in the screenplays of my childhood, in the screenplays of my adolescence and adult life are what brought me to the place where I am now, writing this book. Some will say what I have written is not believable, and others on a more spiritual plane will understand that the things that I have witnessed and experienced are a triumph of the human spirit.

To understand the dream, one must descend with me into my past. My life as a little girl, I can share glimpses, having only scant memories of uncertainty; slide shows coming to the forefront of my mind. Both parents now deceased, I am unable to ask questions about the foundation on which the grizzly bear dream built an entire fortress around my existence, continually haunting me even throughout my adult life. Flash, pause, flash, pause, and the projector keeps the slide show movingslides that have been on that slide wheel from childhood.

Scant memories I have about being a child living in Jerome, Idaho; a babysitter, a much older woman in a basement apartment; bright-red lipstick; a pink bathroom; a man sitting in a chair at our kitchen table, looking up at me. These are glimpses of things that the safety deposit box of my mind stored away for decades, treasures kept locked up so tight until a few short years ago when the grizzly bear finally tracked me down and the safety deposit box, which I had no idea was there, opened and more slides were put into the wheel. Scenes set apart, one picture slide at a time as the projector projects the images onto the projector screen of my mind. Flash, pause, flash, pause. I hear the projector as I write these very words.

Remembering a gold tube of red lipstick, the color one may see in movies of nostalgia and the babysitter, that old woman asking me if I wanted to put it on her lips and me saying no because I didnt want to make her mad if I failed to put it on her correctly. She convinced me it would be okay. She scolded me when I colored outside the lines.

Remembering waking up in a bubble bath as if I had just come out of some type of trance. It was a pink bathroom; I was at the babysitters. Flash, pause, flash, pause.

Remembering coming home from the grocery store with my mother and sister, walking by a round kitchen table where my father was playing cards with some gentlemen from the bank he had been employed at. He had invited them over. As we walked by the table, one of the gentlemen looked over his left shoulder and up at me. For some reason, in the chair that he was sitting in, I remember being taller than he was, so he had to look over and up at me. He looked at me with intent. Terror ran through my blood. I remember I was trying to understand the feeling of terror. I hurried to my bedroom, closed the door, and stood there in terror, not understanding what this feeling I was experiencing was. I couldnt understand the feeling of terror in my childs mind. I never came out of my room that night. I dont remember going to bed. I only remember the terror and consciously thinking that I never felt that feeling before. It was new to me. Flash, pause, flash, pause.

Remembering being woken late one evening, in what I now know to be a black Cadillac with red interior. The Cadillac was an older model. I remember the back fenders looked like the fenders on the car Batman drove. I remember asking the babysitter why I was clothed in what I thought to be a black blanket. Her attire was also black. I couldnt wrap my childs mind around why we were driving somewhere late at night, both of us clothed in black. I remember the babysitter telling me to go back to sleep because it would take us about half an hour to get to our destination. I asked where we were going. She would never answer the question. Flash, pause, flash, pause, and the projector continues to move the slideshow forward.

Remembering pulling up to a location near water; at that time I thought it to be a pond. The babysitter parked next to one lone tree. Where are we? I asked in my childs mind. Why are we here with all these other people dressed in strange clothing in the middle of the night? I remember it was just cold enough to see my breath but not cold enough to be freezing.

Remembering, after getting out of the Cadillac, a man walking up next to me, bending down and looking up and into my face. I still remember what he looks like to this day, forty-nine years later. Flash, pause, flash, pause, and the projector keeps the slideshow moving.

Remembering waking up as I was being put in the backseat of the family car with my sister. It was a windy, rainy morning; dark and gloomy. I was still too sleepy to get my bearings. Wondering why we were being put in the car so early in the morning, still in our pajamas. Looking up and out the backseat passenger-side car window and asking what was going on. Quickly my father stepping on the gas and my mothers words, Were moving! My childs mind couldnt understand why we were moving at 5:30 in the morning on such a damp and dark morning. No one had told my sister or me we were moving. We never saw any boxes being packed. Why didnt we get to help pack? How did they pack so quickly? What was going on? After a short distance, the car stopped. I asked my mother what she was doing. She said she was going to get our rocking chairs from the babysitters. She jumped out of the car in the wind and the rain. She was gone for a couple of minutes. She was back in the car. We asked where the rocking chairs were. She stated that the old woman said that possession is nine-tenths of the law and would not give our rocking chairs back so that we could take them with us. They were gifts from our grandmother. Mother was mad. I can still see the look on her face. We were moving without the rocking chairs. We drove for hours. We never returned to Jerome, Idaho.

These are some of the slideshows I have watched on the projector screen of my mind all my life. These are the scant memories I have from my childhood until the grizzly bear tracked me down at the age of forty-four.

From the time I was four years old, I had been having the grizzly bear dream. I never told my parents about the grizzly bear dream coming from a generation of parents in which children were to be seen and not heard. I dreamed it often. The dream stayed with me my whole life.

One time in Lewiston, Idaho, I had the grizzly bear dream, got out of bed, went to my mother and fathers bedroom, and asked if I could climb in bed with them. They told me to go back to bed. I was emotionally paralyzed with fear. I was six.

As a young child, the grizzly bear dream always started out with an unknown person and me in a car on a logging road that was above the tree line high in the mountains. The road was always narrow and winding. The sky was always at dusk. I was always the passenger. An unknown person was always in the drivers seat. I was always watching the winding road because we were always on the very edge of the logging road high in the mountains above the tree line. I was always afraid of the car tires being too close to the edge of the road. Then suddenly I would sense something terrifying. It was that true feeling of terror that I had experienced at the age of four when I saw that man sitting at the table in our kitchen, playing cards with my father. Looking out the car window and down at the top of the trees, which were thick and dark, I would see a group of trees shaking ferociously. I knew it was a grizzly bear shaking the trees. The grizzly bear was deep, deep down in the forest. I couldnt see him, but I knew he was there and he knew where I was. He was shaking the trees, making known his presence to me.