Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs

by John Bloom

“We should always remember,” Candy concluded solemnly, “that what we are is not what we plan for ourselves, but what God plans for us.”

It was not that Betty was unsophisticated or unfriendly; it was simply that she had never seemed very outgoing around the other women of the church. She was hard to read, even a little cold at times, and usually she kept to herself.

As the church’s sole lawyer, he considered it his prerogative, even though Don had never tried a criminal case in his life and had no intention of doing so. Don was one of the church’s chief supporters, not because he was a particularly religious man (he would often bolt from the sanctuary early if the Dallas Cowboys were on television that day),

“When death comes by some more normal method, whether organic, by aging, or even accident, it is difficult enough, but an act of violence seems simply incomprehensible. No one has the answers to all the questions of life.… Perhaps there will be those who look to God and say that He has some eternal purpose in all this. But surely we can’t accept that notion. The notion that God would ‘will’ something like this upon anyone is intolerable. God does not will evil on His people in this fashion.… Occasionally His will becomes thwarted by the actions and behavior of humanity which He has elected not to intervene in the processes of. When things like this happen His will and purposes then change to His ultimate will, so that as Paul puts it, ‘everything works to the good, to them that love God.’” One person who heard Ron’s

“Mr. Udashen, the answer to that is not only no, it’s hell no!”

“Chickenshit,” Don muttered, apparently not caring who heard him. “Son of a bitch.”

habeas corpus

She was a person excessively concerned about what other people thought of her—a common trait in people suffering from dissociative reaction—so she tried to keep up a public front at all times. She wanted others to consider her warm and loving and concerned for animals and children, a person who didn’t have a violent or vindictive bone in her body. No one is that pure, so she had suppressed a great deal of anger over the years in order to satisfy her ideal self-image.

This was a woman who suppressed rage all of her life because of what others might think of her.

“John Steinbeck once wrote that there are those among us who live in rooms of experience you and I cannot enter.

“There’s been an American tragedy played out in this courtroom,”