Speaker 1: I've been in prison for forty eight years, charged with
Speaker 1: the kidnapping and murder of the woman I loved. The
Speaker 1: hardest part hasn't been sitting behind bars all this time.
Speaker 1: It's been the constant, gut wrenching memory of seeing the
Speaker 1: look on my beloved girlfriend's face. She was stolen from
Speaker 1: my arms, taken away by the beast of the woods,
Speaker 1: and disappeared forever. My name is Robin. My sister's name
Speaker 1: is Sparrow. Our mother and father were hippies. I was
Speaker 1: born in the late nineteen fifties. My father was an
Speaker 1: art professor and my mother a graduate student, and we
Speaker 1: moved our family to a farm owned by one of
Speaker 1: their friends, who had inherited a property of over five
Speaker 1: hundred acres. Twenty other families lived on the property, with
Speaker 1: us housed in campers and tents and buses, and the
Speaker 1: farms out buildings. We survived on what was grown on
Speaker 1: the land, little elks. We didn't eat meat or use
Speaker 1: materials from animals, such as leather or hides. We produced
Speaker 1: a variety of items from hemp, which we cultivated on
Speaker 1: the farm, along with several other plants not native to
Speaker 1: the state. I can remember the police visiting us several
Speaker 1: times a week for many years. They would be looking
Speaker 1: for a runaway or had heard complaints that we were
Speaker 1: smoking pot. They found just about any reason they could
Speaker 1: to walk around the property and look in the buildings
Speaker 1: and campers. They never found anything, and life went on
Speaker 1: as usual once they left. One September morning, when I
Speaker 1: was eleven years old, the police arrived with a bus
Speaker 1: and took all the children to school. That was difficult
Speaker 1: for as you can imagine being a hippie going to
Speaker 1: class with a bunch of red blood and Americans who
Speaker 1: all seemed to have loved all the fighting in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: They would make fun of our clothes and our hair,
Speaker 1: and even what we ate for lunch, which consisted of
Speaker 1: only fruit and vegetables. I had long hair that came
Speaker 1: down to the middle of my back. One time, the
Speaker 1: older boys in high school held me down and cut
Speaker 1: it off with their pocket knives. I had a thousand
Speaker 1: reasons not to go back, but one good reason to stay.
Speaker 1: Her name was Sky. I couldn't think of a better
Speaker 1: pair than a bird and the sky. She was the
Speaker 1: only thing keeping me at school that year. Sky's father
Speaker 1: was a car dealer, and a city councilman, and he
Speaker 1: hated me with a passion, but that didn't stop us
Speaker 1: from seeing each other. We wound up spending time together
Speaker 1: at school, and we'd hang out afterwards and even sneak
Speaker 1: out of the house night. We would go to the
Speaker 1: park and line the grass among the flowers, and we
Speaker 1: watched the heavens pass through the night, and I'd sneak
Speaker 1: her back into her house before her parents woke up.
Speaker 1: The summer after we graduated, and we knew our time
Speaker 1: together was limited, I had to register for the draft,
Speaker 1: and Sky's parents had enrolled her in a university on
Speaker 1: the East coast, mainly to get her away from me
Speaker 1: and all the other bad influences in California. So before
Speaker 1: we went our separate ways, Sky and I took off
Speaker 1: for a few days north into the mountains to go camping.
Speaker 1: Sky had a Volkswagen Thing, which was a hell of
Speaker 1: an ugly car, but we could go almost anywhere in it.
Speaker 1: The first night and day passed uneventfully. We made fires
Speaker 1: and stayed up late watching the stars, and we fell
Speaker 1: asleep in the warmth of each other's arms. When the
Speaker 1: morning came, we would rebuild the fire hang around the
Speaker 1: camp and enjoy the peacefulness of the nature around us.
Speaker 1: On the second night, I was awoken by the sound
Speaker 1: of nuts falling on the tent, the cause of an
Speaker 1: unusually loud night bird. I asked Guy about it the
Speaker 1: next morning, but she hadn't heard anything. We sat around
Speaker 1: again that day for a few hours and I did
Speaker 1: some drawings of Sky. I inherited my parents' talent for art,
Speaker 1: and I figured if I had some pictures of her
Speaker 1: to take with me to Vietnam might ease the pain
Speaker 1: while we were apart. A few days later, we left
Speaker 1: our camp to take a stroll through the woods. We
Speaker 1: were only gone for a couple of hours, and when
Speaker 1: we returned we found that our food had been taken.
Speaker 1: I suspected an animal had visited our camp while we
Speaker 1: were away, and was a little on edge that night,
Speaker 1: and I was worried that it might be a bear.
Speaker 1: That night, we were awakened by a pack of coat
Speaker 1: he's up on the top of a ridge. Some owls
Speaker 1: joined in on the noise, and the strange night birds
Speaker 1: were calling again louder than before. The nuts were falling
Speaker 1: all around us, but it seemed to be hitting everything
Speaker 1: except for the tent. So the next day we took
Speaker 1: another walk, and this time to a small mountain lake
Speaker 1: that we had seen on our drive up. As we
Speaker 1: strolled down the dirt road, we could hear something pacing
Speaker 1: us inside the woods. I was afraid it was Sky's father,
Speaker 1: that he had found our hiding spot, brought a friend
Speaker 1: with him, and was going to kill me up there. Well,
Speaker 1: we picked up our pace when we saw our camp
Speaker 1: decided that even though it was late, it was time
Speaker 1: to leave. We were almost to the car when I
Speaker 1: heard a growl. It was so intense and forceful that
Speaker 1: I could feel it in my soul. We heard pounding
Speaker 1: and thundering steps and shook the ground and through the
Speaker 1: trees we watched a giant ape like creature run straight
Speaker 1: at us. It's teeth bared and its arms extended. It
Speaker 1: switched from all fours to two feet, and it gathered
Speaker 1: momentum as it plowed toward use. I pushed my arms
Speaker 1: out around Sky in an attempt to protect her and
Speaker 1: brace for the impact. But the beast swept me into
Speaker 1: a tree like it was nothing, and he scooped Sky.
Speaker 1: I knew his massive arms without even slowing down. Well,
Speaker 1: I was shaken and my head was pounding, one of
Speaker 1: my ribs seared with pain. I finally got to my
Speaker 1: feet and started to chase after them, and I heard
Speaker 1: Sky screaming as she was carried away. But no matter
Speaker 1: how fast I ran, Sky's screams got further and further
Speaker 1: away from me, traveling at a pace that I couldn't
Speaker 1: keep up with, and within a few minutes she was
Speaker 1: out of earshot, and there was nothing but silence that
Speaker 1: surrounded me. I followed a large game trail for some time,
Speaker 1: but I never heard another hint of life from her.
Speaker 1: I came to a stream at the bottom of a gorge,
Speaker 1: and I knew I was lost. I wandered along the
Speaker 1: flowing water until it was too dark to move, and
Speaker 1: I sat down against the cliff that night, and I
Speaker 1: shook in fear and rocked myself into an agitated, restless sleep.
Speaker 1: Throughout the night, I could hear the noises again. Large
Speaker 1: rocks fell off the cliff above me, then logs and
Speaker 1: even a tree, and I huddled against the rock, tormented
Speaker 1: in shame that I didn't have any fight left in me.
Speaker 1: Once I could see, I was up and running as
Speaker 1: fast as I could down the stream. I stumbled out
Speaker 1: onto a road and I felt unconscious at the edge
Speaker 1: of traffic. I woke to a police officer shaking me away,
Speaker 1: and I began to frantically tell him what happened. It
Speaker 1: took the better part of the afternoon for us to
Speaker 1: find my camp. I was heartbroken to see the state
Speaker 1: of things. Heartbroken there was no sign of Sky. I
Speaker 1: spent the night in a jail cell, and the next
Speaker 1: morning I was taken back to the camp. Sky's father
Speaker 1: was there with the police. They had discovered the drawings
Speaker 1: I had made of Sky, then stood by as her
Speaker 1: father went berserk and beat me with his fists. The
Speaker 1: police searched for days, using horseback and dogs, but they
Speaker 1: never found Sky. I even drew a sketch of what
Speaker 1: I had seen running at us, but nobody had really
Speaker 1: heard of a bigfoot back then, and if they had,
Speaker 1: they called those who believed in it crazy. I had
Speaker 1: been in jail for a week and when I was
Speaker 1: charged with the kidnapping and murder of Sky, and I
Speaker 1: was on trial within less than two months. I had
Speaker 1: a public defender that was a relative of the sheriff,
Speaker 1: and I told the judge that I'd rather defend myself
Speaker 1: than to have him do, knowing I would have a
Speaker 1: better chance of turning into a bird and flying away
Speaker 1: than getting off. That ended up being a mistake. After that,
Speaker 1: I couldn't appeal the courts ruling if I defended myself,
Speaker 1: and I was found guilty and sent to a mental
Speaker 1: health hospital, where I was constantly sedated for two years.
Speaker 1: After that, I was sent to a federal prison, and
Speaker 1: that's where I've been for the last forty eight years.
Speaker 1: Every now and then I have some visitors. It's mainly
Speaker 1: my family. Several times Sky's parents have come begging me
Speaker 1: to tell them what I had done with her. I
Speaker 1: felt so much pain for her parents, who had no
Speaker 1: closure whatever. I told them the same story over and
Speaker 1: over until everyone finally stopped coming. I was able to
Speaker 1: keep myself busy in prison with my drawing skills. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many convicts are walking around with
Speaker 1: tattoos of Sky on their arms or backs. This was
Speaker 1: the only way that I could keep her memory alive.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many more years I can walk
Speaker 1: these barred concrete walls with the high barbed wire fences.
Speaker 1: A cage bird in mourning my sky keep saying your prayers.
Speaker 1: I just hope that she didn't suffer