Jack Ford

            The court found the defendant Jack Ford guilty.  It was not hard reaching a verdict since Jack readily confessed to murdering his roommate Marcus.  Marcus had been shot through the head by his own gun.  Jack turned himself in immediately after it happened and he was quickly prosecuted.

            The one thing no one could understand was why.  And Jack would not say.

            Jack and Marcus were more than simple roommates.  They were childhood friends.  As kids they lived next door to each other, and so close were the Fords and the Williams that they lived more as one family than two.

            Both families were obviously stunned, neither able to fathom why Jack would murder Marcus.  Although the families still lived next door to each other, they might as well have lived on opposite sides of the city.  Once the court proceedings ended, the families discontinued their friendship with each other.

            Although Jack was cooperative about his case, no mercy was shown to him.  He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. 

Prison was especially brutal for Jack.  Jack was normally the quiet, polite type, and he did not fit in with hardened criminals.  That may sound strange to say about a confessed killer, but such was the case.  Jack was always the nice guy.  He was the friend you called when you could trust no one else.  He was not the murdering type.  But it is as they say.  How well do you ever know anyone?

Inmates despised Jack, and he was beat regularly, among other things.  Everyone knew why he was doing time.  Jack had betrayed the criminal’s cardinal rule—you never backstab your friend.

            Thirty ruthless years passed and Jack was unexpectedly released.  Videotape evidence filmed from a webcam clearly showed Marcus shooting himself.  At the time, Marcus was filming a goodbye video to his family and meant to turn the camera off, but had inadvertently pushed the wrong button.  The video lay hidden on the hard drive of his computer all that time.  Marcus’ father, feeling sorrowfully nostalgic, discovered the video while browsing through his son’s old possessions.  When he made the discovery, he and his family were mortified.

            Jack’s release made national news.  The Killer Who Never Killed, they called him.  There were many speculations as to why Jack did it.  He sought fame.  He suffered from a chemical imbalance.  He was mentally ill.  The explanations got worse, and not one made much sense.  The question remained, why did Jack admit to such a heinous crime he never committed?

            “I didn’t want his family to know he killed himself,” was all Jack would answer.