March 13, 2013

Why Did I Do It?

From Prometheus Writes! by Nathaniel Lindell (author's profile)

Transcription

#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

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Replies (13) Replies feed

Goldfish1871 Posted 11 years ago. ✓ Mailed 11 years ago   Favorite
Thank you for your honesty in writing this.
There only appear to be 2 of the 3 pages in this post - I'll see if maybe the other one has been posted separately as I would like to hear the end of what you have to say.

admin Posted 11 years ago. ✓ Mailed 11 years ago   Favorite
Thanks for letting us know about the error, and our apologies to Nathaniel. We've added the third page to fix it. We read the nightly comment feed which is how we happened upon it but in the future, feel free to use the "flag" icon at the top of the page to call our attention to it directly. Again, many thanks!

Goldfish1871 Posted 11 years ago. ✓ Mailed 11 years ago   Favorite
Third page now added.
Having never experienced having a loved one murdered (thank God) I can't say for certain, but I believe that a sincere apology does count for something as does an explanation. I do not personally think that killing is ever justified even in the case of paedophiles, but knowing there was a reason for your actions might help Mr Harmacek's loved ones make sense of what happened.
-Just my thoughts,
Goldfish

kerri.renee Posted 10 years, 12 months ago. ✓ Mailed 10 years, 11 months ago   Favorite
Hello again Nate.
I read this letter you wrote a few times and I have to say... You actually seem like a good person. I see that you have done wrong, a few times, but realize that and are sincere in your apologies. I really was expecting to read some crap like "blah blah blah, it's not my fault.. blah blah blah the system is corrupt and I didn't do anything that deserves this punishment blah blah blah"

I know it sounds kinda like a stupid question, but it's something that I was thinking about. Do you think that if you would have stayed with the church and not left that life yiubwere trying to live, that you wouldnt be in this life you have now? I go to church and I feel as if it really doesn't do much anyway and people are pretty judgemental if you don't do things the way they'd do it. Being a recovered addict I get lots of sympathy "aw's" and "praise the lord you're better now" I really hate it. (got off topic)

I sit and think about chocies I've made... One second choices.. impulse decisions. And wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't have made them. These thoughts plague me sometimes. Granted, I've never killed anyone... Or been in jail, but I've made some bad choices. I think everyone has really... I don't know where I'm going with this. My mind runs wild sometimes.

Anyway. What I wanted to really say is thank you for stating what happened that got you in the place you are now. Thanks for saying it in a non angry way and full of clarity.

I think if you would have found something proving he was a sicko... I'd agree. No pity. At all. Pedophiles are the worst and don't feel there is a place for them on this earth. There I go again, off topic. Lol

Later, Kerri

Nathaniel Lindell Posted 10 years, 11 months ago.   Favorite
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Roxy Posted 9 years, 4 months ago. ✓ Mailed 9 years, 3 months ago   Favorite
Makes me sad every single time that I read it, even when you don't even think I care about you as much as I really do. Almost 3:00 AM and this is what I'm doing much of the time, trying to be closer to you than I ever have been to anyone. I don't ever ask you about it because I know that it hurts you enough to think about it. I know you have feelings. You don't have to be a monster to do something that society deems monstrous. Child molestation is far more of an atrocity than anything you have ever done, I promise you this. I miss you so much. Just trying to survive right now. xo

Boomish Posted 8 years, 7 months ago. ✓ Mailed 8 years, 6 months ago   Favorite
I don't even Know what to say to this


First off this is your older brother Tom.


We grew up in the same household brother. Had the same experiences the same punishments and the same tortures. You made a choice a piss poor one and you have still not taken responsibility for it.

I'm ashamed to be related to you. I only wish your victim had been armed and shot your sorry ass. Unfortunate Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty I would have paid to be present at your execution.

It has been years since I even thought about you and it wasn't until someone pointed this out to me that I even had a moments pause to consider you

Rest assured after I hit the send button I'm going to finish a picture of beer take my wife home and make love to her and forget you ever existed. You were a mistake and a curse upon this earth

Good bye and good riddance

JT Posted 8 years, 7 months ago. ✓ Mailed 8 years, 6 months ago   Favorite
Had he been involved in child porn or any other illegal activity - it would not have made what you did right or honorable.

I'm going to quote one thing you wrote 'out of context,' because it's the only thing that I have read that really makes sense.

You wrote you were blinded by hate. And reading what you write - that sort of sums it up for me.

There was a great deal of hatred not just on that fateful day - but I imagine on many days leading up to it.

I hope you find a different way of thinking - change is always possible - you just have to want it.

JT

JT Posted 8 years, 7 months ago. ✓ Mailed 8 years, 6 months ago   Favorite
This is a double post (a computer error) - so I'm deleting this duplicate.
JT

Nathaniel Lindell Posted 4 years, 9 months ago.   Favorite
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Nathaniel Lindell Posted 4 years, 6 months ago.   Favorite
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Lola Posted 3 years, 7 months ago. ✓ Mailed 3 years, 7 months ago   Favorite
Your Uncle here
Our family has a it’s share of mental illness and mental anguish among the our family members.
The incest from older siblings to the younger ones as toddlers and children.
These events have a long lasting effect on our life's ...
Two of my brothers ended their own life’s, their tortured minds could not come to grips with their own pasts good & bad.

At 17 years old, I distance myself from my family there in MN.

Tommy is right you make your own choices in life.
But these choices are sometimes just as simple as turning left,
when had you turned right you would be in a different place 25 years later.

Sorry I never reached out I could barely save myself

Nathaniel Lindell Posted 3 years, 6 months ago.   Favorite
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