The Murder...

It was now June, 1973. I was in the process of trying to put together my first all-original band project in Connecticut. My brothers owned a huge concert-club, The Shaboo Inn, one of the most respected music rooms on the East Coast, and the place was big enough to give me a place to rehearse the new band, as well as the opportunity to meet many world-class musicians who were constantly showing up there to perform. If I had to be in Connecticut, I thought I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. That belief was about to change, and along with it...my life... which would forever be different. As it turned out, I was in exactly the wrong place, at exactly the wrong time.

    Around this time, my father and my mother seperated, after 25 years of marriage. My father had found someone new, and my Mom was very despondent. I used to visit her a lot, just to try and cheer her up, and she had finally turned a corner and was starting to move on with her life. But she adamantly refused to give my father a divorce. He was now a very successful businessman, and decades of hard work were all paying off at once, and my Mom felt she deserved to benefit from all the years of struggle and lonliness that she had endured while my Dad worked non-stop to make it all happen, and I agreed with her. We were very close. I was her "baby". So I visited her a lot. Much more than my siblings or my Dad did. One morning, after spending the night at my brothers' nightclub rehearsing, and then partying, I went over to my Mom's for breakfast, and to check in with her. When I got there, I found her dead in the living room, brutally murdered, stabbed 39 times, at least that is what the police told me later. In a state of shock, I called the Fire Dept. for an ambulance...I guess I couldn't comprehend she had been dead for a while. The police arrived first, and when they got there, the very first thing the first detective asked me was..." where did you hide the knife, kid?" And I knew I was in big trouble. I had hair down to my waist, I had found the body, I had been the last person known to have seen her alive, it was only three years after the Manson murders, I was a known drug user and dealer, and statistically, most of these types of crimes are committed by a family member. As I looked at the horrible truth, I realized my nightmare was only just beginning....