All About Janet, the Murder of my Guardian Angel. Forrest Canutt
Beds were scattered about the living room and dining room areas. Most were double beds, but there were small beds lining the walls in some areas as well. The bed where the young girl and I were sleeping was in the dining room area, next to where the dining room and living room intersected, and a couple feet from the far wall. There was another breezeway on the other side of the exterior wall that had a living room entrance only. It contained a swinging couch and a bed as well.
There I was standing on the walkway just outside of the old house, screaming and crying. This young girl that I didn’t know was being attacked by a man I didn’t know, and I was freaking out. From out of nowhere, two of my uncles came running up. I had no idea they were there, for one thing, I have no memory of anything before the bad guy showed up. They were shouting and asking what was wrong, and I told them about the man hurting, the young girl in the house. Like a fool at only 5 years old, I believed the girl and I would be saved and everything would be alright when they came running up.
The two uncles didn’t live at the ranch, but were only visiting. One uncle was named Jake Fisher (Jake). He was tall, dark haired, thin, and when I think of him, I think of Icabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. He was from Texas, and had a Texas manner and drawl about him that said he was easy going, and maybeeven nice, but he wasn’t. I believe that Jake was in the Air Force and may have been wearing his uniform with his pointy cowboy boots on that night. The other uncle was named William (Bill) Bates Munroe. He was short (about 5’ 6”), hairy looking, evil looking, and mean looking. As soon as you saw him, you wouldn’t trust him. When I think of Bill Munroe, I think of Napoleon. Bill was in the Navy, and had his Navy uniform on that night. Turns out that Bill and the bad guy were both in the Navy together and had driven to The Elzigs Ranch that night, together. From where, I do not know.
Right when I started to tell them what was happening, the bad guy came running out of the house. He was wearing only pants, with no shoes or shirt on. Immediately, an argument ensued between my uncles and the bad guy. It seemed as though they were mad enough to beat him up, but I think both of them were just cowards, and did nothing. Then, in the middle of their arguing, all of a sudden, the bad guy seems to get some great idea, and starts telling my two uncles his great idea, and then they start to agree with him and get excited too.
The next thing that happened, I consider to be my first crash course in betrayal, but not my last. The bad guy, and my two uncles then all went into the house. Within seconds, I heard them slapping the girl, her screaming, and them yelling at her. I was still standing on the concrete walkway when they went into the house. I could not believe what was happening, so I started crying and screaming.
Within seconds of starting to scream and cry, Jake came running out of the house, ran up to me, and kicked me square in the stomach. I must have been thrown about 4 feet with the force of his kick, and landed on my back in the dirt with the wind knocked out of me. My Uncle yelled at me to shut up, and went to join the others in their gang rape of my babysitter. I was in agony from the kick, but the most horrible thought to me about the kick, was that he was wearing really pointed cowboy boots, so I was sure that his boot stabbed into me like a knife.
I lay on my back with the wind knocked out of me for a few minutes, and before I could get up, Jake came back outside, picked me up in his arms, and started carrying me up the driveway. I think he might even kind of apologized for kicking me, but still blamed it on me at the same time for yelling. We arrived at the gate to the ranch compound (which was about 150 to 200 linear feet from the walkway where I was originally standing). We went through the gate and walked up to an old pickup or flatbed truck. He opened the door of the truck and put inside. He then told me to stay there and to keep my mouth shut. He then closed the door and walked back towards the gate. It was dark out so I couldn’t see very far, but I heard him go through the gate. I sat in that truck in the darkness, whimpering and crying quietly. I was so scared and confused. What was happening? These are my uncles and they are supposed to save the day, and not be the evil monsters they turned out to be. I did not know the word betrayal at that young age, but I felt the knife of betrayal in my back none the less.
I remember calling out to my father (who died several months before) to come down and save me, and I called out for god to come down and save me. But they could not and did not.
After a measure of time that I am not sure of, the door to the old truck that I was put into, swung open, and standing there with a beer in his hand was Bill. He was unshaven, smelled of alcohol, and was drunk. He started saying things to me that I did not understand or cannot remember. He was talking like I had done something wrong. The next thing I know, he throws me on my back on the seat of the truck, opens my pants, and pulls them down to my ankles. The next part of this is hard for me, as it is humiliating, shameful and embarrassing.
He then continues to talk and ask questions like I had done something wrong. Then, he reaches down between my legs, and starts squeezing my genitals very hard. The pain was unbelievable and indescribable to the point, I thought I did or was about to lose consciousness. He kept asking questions and squeezing me real hard after each question. This continued throughout the night. At times he would put his mouth on my genitals, it was horrible. I was being tortured and molested, and it was the most terrifying and humiliating thing to this day that I have ever endured. Not the only time I was molested, but the worst. After what seemed many hours of torture and molestation with a few breaks in between, he turned me onto my stomach, and sodomized me. It did not last a long time because it hurt so bad, thatI kicked out and kicked him in the balls (not on purpose). He doubled over in obvious pain, I dove onto the floor of the truck and crawled beneath the truck’s heater and doubled up into a ball. I was sure he was going to kill me. But instead, he closed the door of the old truck, and went away.
Throughout all the torture and molestation, Jake would come up to the old truck now and then. He would come up to ask Bill what he was doing up there. When Bill would hear him coming, he would make me pull up my pants and sit up like nothing was wrong. Bill would say he just came to check on me, and then they would go back to the house together. I think this happened about four times, but I don’t know if Jake was ever suspicious about what was going on.
It was after one of their trips back to the house that I heard the girl scream the most blood curdling scream I have ever heard. I want to say that based on what I know now as an adult, that she was being sodomized, but they could have been performing some other type of torture or just hurt her somehow.
I thought they had killed her, so I started getting really upset and screaming and yelling and crying. A couple of minutes later, Jake and Bill came to the truck and asked me what was wrong. I started accusing them of killing her, that I heard her scream, and that they had killed her. They started laughing at me and said “no, no, no, we didn’t kill her”, she is ok. But I didn’t believe them, so I kept accusing them, crying and sobbing. Then they offered to take me down to the house and show me.
They took me out of the truck and carried me back down to the house. When we went inside, I could not see her at first, but then I saw her sitting on her knees on a couch. She looked at me and then smiled at me. I’ve seen that same smile in the films of the Nazi holocaust that you see on public television. They look like they are smiling, but it’s generated by their terror, it just looks like they are smiling, but they are not. Then again, maybe she was smiling at me because some one cared enough about her to stand up to three evil men and try to protect her, even if the person was only five years old. The bad guy was laying on one of the beds in just his underwear. He was drunk and rolling around on the bed and laughing. He then ordered me to come to him, and I did. He then grabbed me by the hair, and started to force my face down to his underwear and laugh. Both of my uncles told him to stop, which he did. A few minutes later, Bill picked me up and began to carry me back out of the house, to the truck. As we were going through the house, I could see that Jake was now in his underwear, and was lying on top of the girl and kissing her. We continued out of the house, and Bill carried me back up to the truck where he put me back on the seat, pulled my pants down, and began torturing and molesting me again. It wasn’t long after that that he sodomized me and I delivered the kick that would drive him off for the rest of the night.
After Bill had left, I fell asleep. The next thing I know, it was daylight, and I was dragged out of the truck and dropped onto the gravel road. I was surrounded