Chapter 9 Age 15
Best laid plans never really work out, and my plans were not going to pan out either. It was about 2 am. In the morning, I had not seen the officer make a round in a few hours, I hit my button to get my door open to go to the bathroom, he didn’t open my door. I waited on the control panel at the desk, a light would light up to indicate someone wanted out to use the restroom. It was about 4 am before I seen him make a round. I couldn’t risk starting to cut the screen, if I didn’t see him make a round, I heard him coming down the hallway, I played like I was sleeping when he got to my door. I wasn’t going to waste the time trying to get my shoes and pants, it was too late. After he made his round, I took my t shirt and wrapped it around the outlet cover, I had a thick book in my room and used it to hit the cover to dig into the metal screen, all I needed was 3 slices to fold the screen down, I opened up a 2 foot flap on the screen, and folded it down. The window only opened about halfway, I tied the bed sheet rope to the metal table/chair, I tossed out my makeshift rope, and in my socks t-shirt and underwear, I slid out the window, holding onto the bed sheet rope it was cold. I slid down the rope, my adrenaline was running high, I slid down past the second floor, I just went over my 4th knot on the rope when the knot slipped, and I fell. I kind of landed on my feet but rolled my left ankle, it hurt like hell, I fell from about the first floor, I got up and I ran. I got about 2 blocks before I had to stop because of my ankle. The next thing I knew there was a sheriff’s car coming down the street, I started running down a side street and he lit up his lights and turned down the street after me. I was so out of place in my underwear and socks all white. I don’t think I was discovered missing yet, but I’m sure he knew where I had come from when he saw me. He got close to me in his car, I was running in between houses, and he jumped out of the car and was on foot right behind me and I just gave up, my ankle was killing me. The officer cuffed me and walked me back to his car, I don’t remember much that was said, he just took me back to intake. I got put into a holding cell, and waited until afternoon to be taken back upstairs, but this time they took me to the 6th floor, and put me into an isolation room. All I had now was a wool blanket and underwear, I spent the next 2 weeks in the isolation room, with nothing at all. During my confinement to the isolation room, I had another hearing, and it was a sentencing hearing, the judge discussed my escape or attempted escape, and the need to keep me confined. He ordered me to be confined to the Maxey boys training center.
After a few weeks in the isolation room, I was able to come out of the room and into the day use area, I was like a rock star walking out, all the kids up there on the 6th floor had questions, they wanted to know what happened, why I fell, it was like a training session, all these kids had murder cases or less than murder cases, and they really wanted to find out how I escaped. I only spent 2 more weeks on that floor, before John showed up to inform me that I would be transferred to Maxey. It was January 1986 when I was moved to the Training center. I got there and the place was a lot different than Starr, there was less movement, you didn’t go anywhere without a staff member, the programming was about the same as Starr with the PPP method in use. Kids restraining kids, the group meetings, a lot more staff involvement in both respects, my only concern was how to get out, how to escape this place, it wasn’t an easy task, and it was going to take some time to figure out.
The programming was the same old Check your self-stuff from Starr, and I had the same mentality as before of swinging on the second Check yourself after the circle up. Most of the kids where 15 with some being 16, there wasn’t individual treatment or counselling, every thing was done in group meeting setting, meals were served in the day room of the unit you were assigned, some of the 16 year olds were studying for the GED tests, 15 year olds were in basic core classes, every kid had some type of chore responsibility each week, the day shift staff made up the chore list, I believe it was a once a week list, the listed chores consisted of the following types of duties. Bathrooms, showers, trash, set up, take down, hall floors, day room floors, Set up and take down were responsible for getting the tables and chairs ready for meals and putting them away after meals. Hallway floors were swept and mopped every day and buffed at least 2 times a week. I figured out real fast that if you were on floors that you could be out of your room on the midnight shift, for special duties. Like striping the wax off the floors and putting new wax down and sealers. Which could take days to do, we will get into that in a few minutes. The rooms/cells were set up similar to that of the Juvenile detention center, heavy metal screens on the windows, windows only opened a ¼ of the way, a metal slab bed, with a metal chair and desk, with a light over it, we also had the call button. We did have outside privileges, the outside area had a 12 foot tall fence with barbed wire across the top, extra staff were present for any outside rec time, and if you made a run for the fence, almost always you could count on your group members to run after you and tackle you to the ground, not to mention the Staff.
In order to be on the night floor crew you had to have some status as a trustworthy kid, and some repour with Mr. Taylor, who was the Midnight staff member, night floor work was done on the weekends, it was mid-April 1986, and I was on floor crew, doing the north hall floor work, the other kid on the crew was a kid named Bill, he was from the St. Joesph area of Michigan, Bill and I had already discussed and had a plan for what we were going to do, and how we were going to escape. We knew that Mr. Taylor had a bad habit of falling asleep on his shift and falling asleep while kids were outside of their rooms working during the late shift. Friday night came up and both Bill and I were waiting by our doors at 11:15 when Mr. Taylor made his first round checking rooms. He told us he would let us out at 12, Midnight came, and my door buzzed, and I pushed it open, Bill and I met at the control center where Mr. Taylor was sitting in his chair. We talked about our plan to strip the floor, and how we were going to do the stripping over the course of two nights and then seal and wax on Sunday night. Bill and I were really trying to just find our perfect opportunity to make our escape, we started first at the fire exit door, which had a very loud alarm on it, which alerted the whole facility when it was opened. It was about 5 foot wide and 20-foot-long area that needed to be stripped, from the Fire door to the Control Room door equaled about 20 feet, we did this area first so that we could be out of sight later in the night, then we started at the end of the North hallway, Mr. Taylor never fell asleep that night, we didn’t finish stripping the whole floor, once we knew that Mr. Taylor wasn’t going to fall asleep, we decided that we needed to put a pause in the work, and try again the next night, I poured 3 gallons of stripper down the mop sink drain, so we ran out of chemical, and had to get more in the morning. We cleaned up what we had to clean up, we had about 15 feet by 5 foot of area to do right by the control room and utility room, we went back to our rooms and went to sleep.
The next day Bill and I got to talking about the night to come and needing to adjust plans if needed. Mr. Taylor was an older man, but we didn’t know how strong he was, and if we attacked him in the control room there was a panic button which would bring all hell down on us in minutes. We decided that we would need to choke him out after we hit him in the head with something heavy, I was bigger than Bil so I was going to be the one doing the choking, and Bill would hit him over the head, I ripped a shower towel in half and made a kind of Garrote, this whole part of the plan was dependent on if Mr. Taylor feel asleep or not, I didn’t want to hurt him if I didn’t have to, but I was willing to cross that line if I needed to. I was getting out of that hell, and nothing was stopping me. Midnight came, Bill and I were buzzed out of our rooms, we went to work, we started to lay stripper down and use the buffer with an abrasive pad to get the old wax off the floor, the lay out worked perfect for out plan, the control room door opened inwards, the utility room door opened outwards, so we had the utility room door opened and Mr. Taylor could not see us and what we were doing, we had the Buffer going and Mr. Taylor feel asleep, the other half of the towel I used to tie the buffer to the door handle for the utility room, and made sure it was still running and level, so that it would not sweep from side to side, Bill crawled into the control room behind Mr. Taylor, I was standing right next to the door with a weight in my hand that if he woke up I would hit him over the head. The Keys were hanging from Mr. Taylors belt on a key holder. Bill got the keys off the holder no problem. I grabbed a wool blanket I had in the utility room, and we both went to the Fire door, I was watching Mr. Taylor as Bill tuned off the Alarm and opened the door with the keys. We went outside, and closed the door softly, the buffer still running in one place, we took off across the field, we made it to the Fence. I climbed up and Bill tossed me the wool blanket, I threw it up over the barbed wire, and went over it, Bill was right behind me. I hit the ground running, I was going East back to my Stomping grounds, Bill was heading West to his home area. I ran into the woods and disappeared. After about a mile of running I made it to US 23, this time I had pants shoes and a coat on, I got out to the freeway at about 3:00 am, I wasn’t out there long before I was picked up by a guy going my way. When we got down to the Taylor Michigan area, right by Metro Airport, I had him drop me off at Middlebelt and I-94, which only a year and a half later would be the crash site of Flight 255. I wasn’t taking the chance of this guy taking me home like last time, I was getting out of that car. I got onto the Railroad tracks at Middlebelt and walked towards Telegraph.
I had a buddy that lived 3 miles away, and he always told me I could hang at his place if I needed a place to stay. I hung out in the woods near his house until morning, after sunrise, I went over to the strip mall across the street from his house and sat down up against a wall and waited for him to come outside. His house was right on Pardee Rd, just south of Ecorse Rd. I waited over an hour, and then I saw Eric, I yelled across the road and he saw me, he jumped on his bike and came over to me, we talked for a few and I told him what was going on, he told me that I could hang out at his house after his mom went to work, after his mom left I got a shower and took a nap, I had a long night, when I woke up he told me that I could stay in the car in the back yard, at night, it was his brothers, but it didn’t run or drive, he just told me not to say anything to his brother, and not to let his brother see me go into the car.
Over the next few months, to survive I would go into the grocery store in the strip mall every night, and go to the candy bars and steal a 6 pack of Snickers, I would eat 3 snickers at night and eat 3 in the morning, to get cash I would break into vending machines that were outside, so that I could get smokes, and other things to eat through out the day, I did break into the laundromat and got into the vending machines in there a few times. I wasn’t to far from my dad’s house, sometimes during my 4 months on the run I would go over and see my friends by my dads place, my buddy Clay, Lance and Chuck, and we would get into trouble on the weekends, one night Clay, Lance and I where trying to break into this house, it was after midnight, we had knocked on the door to see if anyone was home, there were no cars in the driveway, we figured nobody was home, I was trying to pry up the window, when Clay grabbed a hold of me and pulled me down right before the window exploded, Clay was watching the window when he seen a double barrel shotgun part the curtains, we took off running. That night I spent in one of the campers at the storage yard near my dad’s apartment.
After I almost got shot, I decided to get a ride over by my mom’s house, and I had a friend over there let me stay in his garage for a few nights, I made contact with the boss of the chop shop, and he gave me a car to steal, he wanted me to steal a 1978 corvette, he gave me a location of one in Lincoln park, I knew the area because my grandmother lived right down the street, the Corvette was under a parking canopy, and it was covered with a car cover, once I got into the car, nobody could see me inside, I got the car started, and rolled the window down and pulled the cover off of the car as I drove away, I picked up my look out and we drove away, we went down Dix to Southfield Rd. turned right to head towards Ecorse, when we got into Ecorse, I was driving too fast, and a police car seen me and got behind me and lit up his lights, I took off, I made a left on to High St. and gunned it, he was falling behind, but he was still there I slowed down make the curves at an industrial area and hit it again, I was flying down high street when I realized Outer Drive was coming up, I didn’t stop at the stop sign, I flew across Outer Drive, I almost hit another car at 80 Mph, I had a plan to get into Southwest Detroit. I made it to Salliotte Rd. and turned left to jump over the tracks, the police car stopped on the tracks and did not come after me. I drove down 4 blocks and pulled into a parking space, and waited about 15 minutes, after 15 minutes, I pulled out onto Outer Drive back down to High St. and into the chop shop, I got paid, and the boss asked me what happened, I told him and he told me I shouldn’t have run the police past the shop, I told him it wasn’t my intention to bring them there, but I knew I could lose them by running into Southwest Detroit, he told me that he didn’t like the fact that I drove them right past the shop and that I was bringing heat to him. He told me not to come back. I counted my money when I left, and I only got $200. I was not happy. I went to my buddy’s garage and went to sleep.
The next day, I asked my buddy’s brother to give me a ride back over to Taylor, he did for $10.00, I put my bike in the back of his pickup and went back over by my dad’s house. A few weeks later, me and chuck went to a big party back in the woods behind the apartment complex, we were super drunk, and walking past my dad’s apartment about 3 am, I felt the hood of his van and it was cold, the lights were off in the apartment, I remembered that there was a spare key in the change holder on the counsel, the door was unlocked, I got into the driver’s seat, and Chuck couldn’t get in the passenger door, so he slide the sliding door open and got into the back seat. And slammed the door shut, I found the key and started the van. I backed the van up, and next thing I knew, my dad in his underwear ran out of the apartment and jumped in front of me. I hit the gas right before he jumped in front of me, I swerved to miss my dad, and he jumped the other way, I ran into the other parked cars in the parking lot, I hit the cars so hard I knocked two cars partially onto the sidewalk next to my dad’s apartment.