#127 Why Did I Do It?
by Nate A Lindell 28 Feb 2013

It's a fair question, though none of you have directly asked. One, Taylor, misrepresented my motives & Sean incorrectly stated why I did it[underlined], so I'm clearing the air. Besides, some of you readers who've lived more of a sheltered life might needlessly fear me & thus I'd lose your friendship or presence.

It[underlined] is the murder I committed in 1997, of Donald Harmacek, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I say I[underlined] committed it because had I not brought up the idea to my younger & ex 1/2 brother (later you'll understand), Mr Harmacek would be alive.

So why'd I do it? Simply, two reasons:
1) I believed he either sold child porn or entertained it & was doing something[underlined] illegal, &
2) I believed he had a lot of money.

The basis for both of there beliefs were the words of my white trash associates, who'd previously burglarized Mr Harmacek's car, house etc, finding hundreds of thousands of dollars &, so my closest crimee, piles of child porn, photos of children tied up & in s+m poses. I was both greedy & blinded by my hate for child abusers.

Sweatpea1 clarified what maybe seems bizarre to more conventional people: that someone can be, literally, a serial killer, yet abhor rapists, child abusers etc. Likely this is because most, though not all, violent criminals had severely abusive childhoods. Philip Carlo gives a prime exampler of this in his The Iceman...

This is not an attempt to seek anyone's sympathy, nor an attempt to justofy my killing of My Harmacek. I'm just saying, honestly, why I did it. I'm not getting paroled, ever. This isn't part of a plea bargain, which I don't take anymore. I do hope it'll help people[underlined] (not beaurocrats nor governments) avoid the situations that made Mr Harmacek's death & my life in prison a reality.

No, Taylor, I wasn't on durgs, wasn't & am not a dopefiend. I drank one beer before I went off with my bro to kill & rob Mr Harmacek. No, I hardly talked my brother into this either. He envisioned me as an outlaw who turned Christian which I genuinely had, when I was released from a stint in three states' jails due to an indirectly suicidal crime spree I went on after a former friend snitched on me for some senseless thefts, ruining my enlistment in the Navy as a Nuclear Tech. I felt cursed to be a criminal, as stupid as it might sound, thus I decided to be the best one I could be.

But i had an awakening while in K.C., K.A.'s jail. I sincerely pursued Christianity as the answer to my hopeless-looking life. I had no-one, no family nor friends who were positive influences or even really cared for me. I believed, desperately, God did, & was intent on living His way. I found it weird, then irritating that people doubted me & were even antagonstic towards my new attitude.

I wanted a family, which meant I needed a career. So, I enrolled in a Tech College for Marketing Mgmt rather than the Apostolic Bible Institute in St Paul that my church wanted me to go to. I had to quit my job doing concrete construction for my pastor's son. This all earned me cold shoulders from my fellow church members, a small group of U.P.C.I. Pentecostals, whom I joined because I believed they were the most Biblically true sect. I severed ties with Baptists & an Assembly of God preacher who, if that's what I was after, offered me good jobs, places to live etc. But I was seeking truth.

After 10 months of being free, I caught enough of a glimpse of the truth that I stopped going to church. Slowly I slipped back into my less moral ways. When I needed money to pay restitution & rent, I burglarized Mr Harmacek's house & came out 10 minutes later with 800$ worth of quarters, dimes & nickles. Back to school & working part-time as a roofer. I was out of the crunch.

After my younger bro saw I was partying with other college kids, he thought I was cool & came to me. We got reacquainted. I found out he was heavy into doing 'shrooms and smoking weed, while doing good as a commercial-art student & working at a grocery store. Yet he was square & didn't even realize it. E.g. he tried to sell weed to some lame cats I lived by & went to Tech College with, but they smoked it all up "testing" it & then paid him zero. He listened to Tupac & wanted to be tough, but just wasn't. Too bad he kept trying.

A day came the Josh, my little bro (a year younger, but ann inch taller - we've often been mistaken for twins) came to my place & proposed we rob a bank, saying he thought he could trust me. I told him that was too hot, outside of my expertise, but that I knew of Mr Harmacek's & what my associates had told me of him. We agreed to do it.

The details of how it happened, who was involved, doesn't matter for the purpose of my writing this. And I never told the police nor even my attorney all of those details. What matters is we killed him.

The first thing we did after he was practically dead was look for child porn. We found none. We overlooked a cigar-box with 10,000$ in it about 3 feet from his body. I only found one nude photo of a young woman who looked...awkward.

My brother took a bad deal & testified on me. Because he still fails to see the dishonor in that (we've occasionally written each other - his last letter to me sought legal help in overturning his restitution order, 117,000-some dollars for the burning of Mr Harmacek's house), we're not brothers. He's requested to be separated from me.

Before we went to Mr Harmacek's house, Josh & I watched A Time To Kill[underlined], ironically. It's a movie where a black man kills two stereotypical white-trash southerners who raped his daughter, more propaganda than realistic. But it steeled us to kill Mr Harmacek. I do not say this with glee, but, simply put, we executed him. And I am sure he felt nothing.

I am sincerely sorry for the suffering of his loved ones & the hurt to the innocents in the community hurt by what we did. They didn't deserve that, nor did Mr Harmacek. Had I found child porn, I would not feel any pity for him, just for his lovers, who would still be innocents. But, really, what does such an apology count for? It won't bring back the dead. It makes nothing right. Maybe it allows some to learn & move on, but I doubt even that.

Sorry, this isn't something that says I accept mistreatment by prison staff as my due, nor is it a declaration that I will live a law-abiding life from now on. Nor am I saying I am a criminal for life. This just explains, briefly, why I killed Mr Harmacek. I wish I hadn't.

C'est la morte
Nate