By Reason of Insanity Read Free

at the time because neither wanted to get involved with the police. And of course she had told her future husband that the man was impotent, that he had just played with her a little that night and had then left. She wasn’t sure she was believed but she didn’t really care, that was her story. Now with the baby coming, it might not be a good idea to bring all that up again. In the end she decided to do nothing about the night. But she followed the case in the papers, and when they started calling Chessman the Red Light Bandit because he had flashed a red light on the occupants of cars, she was almost certain he was her man.
    On April 30, 1948, a son was born to Sara Owens. Named Thomas William, his eyes were brown and his hair dark, whereas both Sara and her husband had light-brown hair. At a glance he looked nothing like his father, but a nurse kindly pointed out that physical characteristics often skipped a generation. The father nodded gravely.
    On May 18, 1948, Caryl Chessman was convicted on seventeen of eighteen counts of armed robbery, kidnapping and rape. He was subsequently sentenced to death and given a July date of execution. In handcuffs and under heavy guard, he was taken to San Quentin. His appeal delayed the execution, and by summer’s end the Chessman case—except for further appeals and various legal actions over the next twelve years—was out of the headlines and the public mind for the moment.
    In the Owens household the addition to the family brought about subtle but increasingly disruptive changes over the next several years. Sara lost some of her energy, which had never been vast anyway. The birth had drained her physically and emotionally. She vowed never to have another baby, no matter what. She would die first. Then, too, her great disappointment at not having had a girl could not be contained forever. Unconsciously at first, without willful deliberation, she began to resent the boy. Toward her husband as well she became increasingly remote. After losing the job at the garage he had run through a string of odd jobs that never seemed to bring in enough money. She herself could not work because of the boy, nor did she feel up to it any longer. With growing alarm she sensed her husband changing, not realizing that she was changing as well. She came to feel that he was careless toward her, that he was no longer accepting his responsibilities. She resented the spiraling amount of time he spent away from home with his friends, whom she saw as drifters and bums. She worried that he might be with other women. In short, Sara gradually began to feel cheated out of whatever it was she should have had, and as always she saw it as a plot directed against her by men.
    Harry, for his part, also felt cheated. His wife no longer was the sex toy he had married. She wasn’t exciting anymore, she didn’t make him feel alive. Now she just nagged him and was sloppy around the house and screamed at the kid all the time. And he resented her wanting him to work night and day, especially when she did no work. He was good with cars and he liked money, sure, but he couldn’t see spending his life just working to take care of her and the brat. He never should have tried to settle down, it just wasn’t in him. He felt trapped, and somehow he knew it was all her fault. What he would do is figure out a way to get enough money to leave.
    By the third year of their marriage Sara and Harry were openly dissatisfied with each other. Yet they remained together in their three-room apartment, each afraid to let go of the old, fearful of the new. She still gave him what sex he wanted, or at least some of the time. He still gave her what money he had, or at least part of it. Sara had taken to drinking wine in the house. Harry, strictly a beer man, didn’t think women should drink, at least not married women, and certainly not his wife. The first time Sara got drunk, at least the first time Harry came home to find her drunk, he hit