Thicker Than Blood

By J.D. Edmonds

Joey was a quiet, shy, country boy from a small southern town who could not wait to turn eighteen. After a childhood marred by neglect and abuse, he planned to leave home and vowed never to return. The struggle to survive in a changing economy led Joey into debt. He made a fateful decision to return home after a decade on his own. Immediately after returning home, old wounds would be reopened. Still, after his mother suffered a debilitating stroke, he could not find it in himself to abandon her. When Joeys big brother died suddenly and unexpectedly, his remaining siblings would put him through the nightmare that he had feared his whole life.

Based on actual events, Thicker than Blood is a story of family, honor, and reconciliation. It is also a story of greed, betrayal, and perseverance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490812304

J.D. Edmonds

Born and raised in a small southern town, the author is a veteran of the Gulf War era. He is also a former correctional officer with a degree in criminal justice who has studied the criminal justice system inside and out. Though from a poor, dysfunctional family the author has overcome poverty and depression, and plans to pursue a life-long dream of a career as a musician.

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Copyright © 2013 J.D. Edmonds.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-1230-4 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/21/2013

Contents

Chapter 1   False Witness

Chapter 2   The Others

Chapter 3   Commitment and Betrayal

Chapter 4   For What is a Man Profited…?

Chapter 5   A Song of Mice and Liars

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

Chapter 6   Free Indeed

Epilogue

Glossary

About the Author

This book is dedicated to

the memory of my grandmother.

Preface

Hello, my name is Joseph. When I was a kid, I loved to watch shows like Dragnet. Every episode began with these words; The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I don’t know how many characters in my story can be considered truly innocent. None-the-less this is my personal story, and it is based on actual events. For various reasons the names have been changed, including my own.

I was born and raised in a small town, in the southeastern part of the United States. My whole life I have tried to do the right thing, and follow the golden rule. I have always tried to treat others the way that I would like to be treated, with dignity and respect. I actually thought of myself as one of the last boy-scouts. In my experience however, people often mistake a laid back, easy going nature with being slow mentally. As a result many people have tried to take advantage. Still, I tried to remain true to myself.

Never in a million years did I ever think that I would wind up being the bad guy in a real life crime drama. Yet that is exactly what happened.

From June of 2011, until November of that year, I lived through a nightmare that no one should have to experience. With the combination of hard economic times, and eroding civil liberties, I believe stories like mine will become more and more common place. This book is my attempt to inform people of what could happen to them, and to hopefully prevent it.

Introduction

They say that blood is thicker than water. Apparently, paper is thicker than blood. I’m talking about paper in the form of money, the love of which we are told is the root of all evil. How many people know someone that would betray them for money? How many know someone that would betray their own mother for cash? How many people, I wander, think that their own brother or sister could do that to them? Most would probably answer, not me, or not my family.

My name is Joe, it is short for Joseph, and this is my story.

Like many people struggling in the current economy, I was a re-nester. After getting out of the active duty military I moved back home. It was only supposed to be a temporary solution. I had left home at the age of 18, and had managed to get into debt.

My plan was to work off my debts, save a little money, and then leave again. As it turned out, good paying jobs were almost impossible to find at the time, and I would wind up taking whatever jobs I could find. By the time I went back to school, in hopes of making more money, my 5 year plan had turned into a 10 year plan.

My big brother John must have had the same idea. He moved back from Tennessee, where he had moved to shortly after we lost our home in a fire. It was the house we had grown up in. Our siblings were all married, and had their own places.

Around the time of the fire, our mother started having serious health problems. John had just moved away, and my little brother Mark had blamed me for mom’s heart attack.

By the time John had left, and then moved back home, nearly 10 years had passed. Our mother not only survived a heart attack, but a stroke, a ruptured colon, and breast cancer as well.

My sister Karen helped mom get through her fight with breast cancer. Other than that, the others had no problem leaving the responsibility of looking after our mother to me. I took care of her, the best I could, for 8 years. It wasn’t until John passed away unexpectedly at the age of 55 that my siblings began to paint me as a monster that needed to be chained up, and thrown in a cage. It was about the time they found out that John had left our mother a small fortune in insurance money. That’s when the trouble began.

My three remaining siblings, Mark, Karen, and little sister Pam, would use everything I had ever said or done, good or bad, against me. They used my military service, and the fact that I had voluntarily received treatment for anxiety and depression, to say that I was a danger to myself and others.

Millions of people suffer from anxiety and depression, it does not automatically mean that they are dangerous. They say more women suffer from it than men, but I believe that is because most men will not admit to having a problem. Most men with depression simply deny and drink. The fact that I had admitted to my problem, and sought help should have been seen as a good thing, instead they used it against me. Some famous men have dealt with depression including, Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill.

The thing that hurt me the most was the fact that John and I had been in a fight three years earlier. My big brother and I had fought with each other since we were kids. Even as adults we got into arguments that turned physical. John and I agreed on the important things such as politics and religion. We even agreed that our siblings were pretentious snobs. It was the small petty things that would upset John the most it seemed. I never wanted to fight with him as an adult, but when I would walk away from an argument, he would always call me a wimp or a coward. The day of the fight I had begged my brother to just leave me alone, but from the time we were kids that only made him more contentious. The more I begged him to leave me alone, the worse he would get.

Though I was nowhere near when John died of a heart attack, Pam would make it sound as if I had something to do with his death. After trying unsuccessfully to get me out of the way by having me involuntarily committed, under false pretenses, my siblings would try something else.

Chapter

1

False Witness

15 August 2011. I received a letter with the words Return to Sender stamped in big red letters on the envelope. It would have hurt less if it had been from my girlfriend, but this was a letter that I had sent to my attorney. I was in jail for the first time in my life, and I had just turned 50 a few months earlier. Apparently, I had been given the wrong address to my court appointed attorney’s office. It had only been two weeks since I had been arrested, and already a sense of despair had begun to set in.

Excuse my manners. I guess an introduction is in order. My name is Joseph, my friends call me Joey, and the story you are about read is based on actual events. Only the names have been changed.

Jail in reality is a lot like you see it depicted in the movies, but unless you experience it personally, it is difficult to find the words to express what it is like to have your dignity, privacy, and freedom stripped from you.

What was my charge? Assault on a female and interfering