OK guys, I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear more news and I apologize for being late. I really hate posting these things. 

In my last few posts (on Facebook) I said that we would be coming out to Washington to attend the beginning of the trial. This has changed and here’s why; there’s about 30 first responders that they’re calling to testify about what they saw the night that they arrived on the scene. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want this going around in my thoughts for the rest of my life. I just don’t. Think very carefully before you decide to attend this part of the trial. This trial is going to be ugly. If you plan on attending you need to be prepared.

Please do not contact me to ask me questions about what’s going on with the trial (what they’re doing that day or that week). I won’t have those answers unless I directly call our victims advocate and ask, or if they call me and offer up that info. It’d be different if I was there and attending because they would warn me about what’s coming so I can decide if I want to go the next day or not.

Bob has been subpoenaed by the state. This means he cannot attend the trial until sentencing. And no, he has not done anything wrong. This is common because he knew the people involved. I didn’t know them, so I am not going to be called as far as I know.

As for myself, I am seriously struggling with whether or not I can attend at all and whether or not I can emotionally handle it since I cannot sit in there with Bob and Doug. Doug is not going to be able to sit in there with me either because he has to work. Without the support of these two men I don’t know that I can handle this trial sitting in there by myself. I don’t know that I can look at the man who murdered Mary and Theresa. I don’t know if I can stand to look at Dallas. I don’t know if I can stomach looking at Lindsey. For right now lets just keep it to where I will post if I decide to go. Right now, here today, I feel like I want to be there at least for sentencing. Ya’ll are just going to have to deal with me being wishy-washy about trial attendance. Unless you’ve been in my shoes, please don’t judge.

Matthew is being charged with two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree and arson in the first degree. This normally carries an automatic death sentence in the State of Washington, but since the Washington Supreme Court recently did away with the death penalty there, this is no longer an option. He had originally offered a plea deal where he would agree to 45 years if he didn’t have to go to trial. Thankfully the prosecuting attorney flatly turned that down. He has decided to plead insanity. He knows his life will be spent in prison. He knows he is never again going to be a free man. If he spends the rest of his life in prison, the inmate level he will have will be where he cannot be less than an arms reach from a prison guard. Ever. If he spends the rest of his life in a mental institution he will get certain privileges that he would not otherwise receive in prison. Compared to prison a mental institution will be cake for him. This is the only reason he is pleading insanity, for the extra privileges. 

Dallas is being paroled sometime in the first or second week of January (next month). His mother, Lindsey, was released and served less than a year.

A brief description of what happened to my daughter Mary and her friend Theresa can be read here on the official Pierce County website: Olympia man charged with the decapitation murders of two women

I probably will not post again until after sentencing.