“When I was alive I crushed my son’s head with a heavy rock I found by the side of the river,” Mr James said. “Then I chucked him in the water.” Joe dropped his pipe in his lap and fumbled to grab it before it fell to the ground. “He was barely three years old, and he had a terrible earache. He screamed night and day, and his mama couldn’t stop the noise. I took to spending my time out of doors, but even when I was some distance away from the house, I could still hear his cries. He wouldn’t eat and he wouldn’t sleep, and my wife and I couldn’t sleep either.”
