The Criminal Mind: A Case of Family Murder

Alan’s didn’t know Portia’s name, although she died in his bed. He’d picked her up on his last bash before he signed himself into drug rehab. Her name was Portia. “I went out to have a hell of a time,” he said.

“I had a hell of a time, all right. I came home and killed my family.” He murdered his fiancée and his two toddler children. He kept forgetting that he had killed Portia that same night, though he seemed to admire her. “She fought like a demon,” he said. “That woman didn’t want to go.”

He killed Portia because he didn’t want to pay her and didn’t want her pimp banging on his door later, looking for money. He couldn’t figure out what to do with Portia’s body, so he stowed it under his bed.

Later that day, he killed Emily, his fiancée. Alan described the murder as if it were a scene from an opera, and he was the lead tenor. As he strangled her, she mouthed, “I love you” and died. Later, he murdered his son and daughter because he didn’t want them to be orphans. He figured he’d go to prison for life. He was right.

Alan is serving four life sentences without parole. The judge rejected his plea for leniency. His grounds were diminished capacity because of drug-induced psychosis. He listed the drugs he took that night.

“I got like forty pink crosses. I got a dime of dust, or maybe a dime and a nickel. I got two or three, four hits of acid, that green pyramid acid.” He also went from bar to bar, drinking all the way.

Alan enjoys talking about himself, but it can be hard to tell when he’s running a con. At times he appears amused. He chuckled when he described the death of Portia and grinned when he said he had a hell of a time that last night out.

I interviewed Alan in prison. A widower, Alan may have murdered his wife, the mother of his children, but the police were never abe to prove it. 

In a mordant, humorous tone, explained why his kids would have been orphans. His wife had died a year earlier. He described the discovery of her skeleton in a lime pit. A hunter at first thought they were deer bones until he saw the fingernails painted red. No one was ever charged in that murder.

He put an ironic twist to his rationale for killing his toddler children Libby and Danny, who were taking an afternoon nap while he was in his bedroom with Emily. With Emily dead on his bed and Portia dead under it, he looked in on his children. They were still sleeping. “That was a signal from God to kill the kids because the kids would never take a nap until five o’clock,” he said.