Homelessness

It was supposed to be a new chapter.

The job at Freedom House had shown me that maybe—just maybe—I could reclaim a career in mental health. I was working with children again. No one questioned me. My past, for once, wasn’t a disqualifier. I had begun to believe that the world might finally see me for who I was—not who Ana claimed I had been.

Then, I was let go.

No explanation, just an ending. The same old silence where there should have been reasons.

I scraped by, living on unemployment for a few months, then had to reapply for Social Security Disability. The shame of it crept in again, slow and suffocating.

Was I back where I started?

I kept applying for jobs. Interview after interview. Some hopeful, some perfunctory. Most leading nowhere. Then, in early September 2024, a woman named Yanique called. RHD wanted to hire me. They’d chosen me from dozens of applicants.

I felt a flicker of belief. Maybe the long shadow of 2004 was finally lifting.

But of course, there was the background check.

I gave them the same letter I always gave—my statement of truth, along with a letter from the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. I had disclosed everything. Again. Just like I had when I got the job at Freedom House.

It should have been enough.

Instead, the legal department delayed everything. They needed to speak to former employers, confirm the story I had already told in detail. I tried to track down coworkers from the Mobile Crisis Unit—but our company phones had been wiped clean, and I’d never saved their numbers. RHD's HR department pulled some random number off the internet and reported that "Freedom House had never heard of me."

That was the first gut-punch.

Still, I waited. I followed up. I took walks along Wrightsville Beach trying to stay calm, the waves crashing like my anxiety. I was 58, jobless again, walking a beach I had once shared with Lynn. I had dreamed of a life filled with love and stability. I was living in the ruins of that dream.

Eventually, RHD offered a compromise.

I wouldn’t work the job I applied for. Instead, I’d be assigned to a different unit—under tighter supervision, in a program for people transitioning out of prison. It was framed as a second chance.

But it didn’t feel like one.

I was being sent to work in a setting where I was automatically distrusted. Even though I had never committed a violent crime, never hurt anyone, I was treated like a liability. They wouldn’t let me meet with clients alone.

For a month, I was placed on administrative leave.

When I returned, I was monitored constantly. Everything I said or did was scrutinized. And still, no one told me why.

My supervisors—Wendy and Andrae—seemed determined to find fault in everything I did. Weekly check-ins became interrogations. I was written up for the smallest of things. There was no guidance, no support. Only discipline. Only fear.

Andrae was especially chilling—his presence triggered something deep inside me, the same terror I felt when I was wrongly arrested in 2004, when police didn’t believe the truth.

I had worked so hard to overcome that trauma. I had built a life back from the ashes. But here I was again, shrinking under the weight of unjust authority, retraumatized by people who claimed to work in mental health.

Eventually, I filed for ADA accommodations. PTSD is a recognized disability. I had letters from my doctors. I asked to be treated with dignity.

But it was too late.

They terminated me on March 14, 2025.

No more appeals. No more explanations.

Just another door slammed shut.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the drive to help others. I was the one in need of care, of support, of someone who could hold my story without recoiling.

I still believe in the power of peer support, in the healing that can come from connection. But I also know now that no matter how far I’ve come, the injustice of 2004 still follows me. Not just in the legal records. But in the assumptions people could make or have to make when the legal department of a company is worried about liability issues. The boxes they check. The decisions they never explain.

This book isn’t ending with triumph. But it’s ending with truth.

I am still unemployed. I still don’t know what the next employer will say when they see the results of a background check and make assumptions without hearing the full story. Sometimes they are not allowed to hire me even the hiring manager is fine with what they discover.

But I am still here. Still trying. Still writing. Still telling the truth.

Because if the world won’t give me justice, then maybe this story will or at least it will allow me to be heard.

Maybe someone will read this and understand. Maybe someone will see me.

I arrived in Chapel Hill still haunted by the weight of what had happened. The trial loomed over me like a surreal nightmare that could always get worse—each day darker than the last.

It felt like I had one foot in the Upside Down, that decaying alternate world from Stranger Things—gray skies, black vines coiling through every structure, flakes of ash suspended in the air like frozen sorrow. A world where sunlight never broke through, and something monstrous always lurked just out of sight.

That was my emotional landscape. A place of trauma, fear, and numb detachment. One version of me walked Chapel Hill’s streets. The other was trapped in that shadow world—haunted, hunted, unseen.

I had started seeing a therapist, one I would continue seeing for years. But in those early days, he could barely reach me. I was too far down. Healing felt impossible when my future was uncertain, and every breath I took carried the suffocating fear of what awaited me in court—because no matter how implausible Ana’s story was, sitting in front of two detectives in bloody clothes had not been enough to convince them of the truth.

At night, I slept on the floor of the homeless shelter. During the day, I found temporary refuge in the libraries on UNC’s campus. I’d sit at a computer, pretending to research or write, anything to keep my mind from spinning. I still didn’t allow my mind to go to the place where the charges existed, didn’t understand the sentence I was facing, and my lawyer hadn’t explained any of it.

I was moving through fog, without a map, without a compass.

The Call That Changed Everything

It was sometime in July 2006 when I called my lawyer from the UNC campus. He picked up, abrupt and urgent.

“Come to court. Now.”

No explanation. No context. Just: Now.

I asked how long I had, but he didn’t care—just that I needed to get there fast.

My pulse spiked. I grabbed my things and rushed to the bus from Chapel Hill to Duke. From there, I walked toward the courthouse in a panic, nearly running.

My heart was racing—not just from the exertion, but from the deep-rooted fear I had lived with since being charged. I had already missed a court date once, and the shame and terror of that mistake still sat in my bones. I could not afford another one.

By the time I reached the courthouse, sweat clung to my skin. I was gasping for air—not just from the walk, but from the dread clawing at my insides. No matter how implausible the charge was, my only fear that morning was being late—getting in trouble, being punished for missing something. I had no idea this was a turning point, a break in the case that would define the rest of my life. I was terrified of being arrested for failure to appear—not of walking into a courtroom where my lawyer would ambush me and unravel my future in minutes.

The Ambush

The moment I stepped into the courthouse, I saw my lawyer—standing in the hallway. Not in a private room. Not even in a quiet corner. Just… there. And beside him, the prosecutor.

My stomach sank. The whole setup was wrong. It felt staged.

I barely had time to catch my breath before he said:

“They’re dropping the sexual offense charge. You’ll plead guilty to second-degree kidnapping. No additional jail time, just time served and probation.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

My lawyer had once told me, “No jury will ever believe you capable of this.”

Nothing had changed. No new evidence, no new testimony. No revelations.

He had known I was innocent. From everything I’d ever told him. From every conversation. He had never doubted I was the victim.

But now, standing in front of me, he was threatening me.

“Take this deal, or you could face 10 years in prison,” he said. “We discussed this.”

We hadn’t. That was a lie.

He had never told me what the potential sentence might be. Why would he? If he truly believed no jury would convict me, there was no reason to warn me of prison time. The implication had always been that we’d win. That truth would matter.

Now, I was being railroaded. Ambushed. He was cornering me—and doing it with the prosecutor present.

I was frozen with fear. And in that surreal moment, something happened that still stuns me to this day:
I looked at the prosecutor for comfort.

She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t reassuring. But she wasn’t threatening me either.

My own lawyer was the one making threats.

That moment—me looking toward the prosecutor because my lawyer frightened me—sums up everything.

Walking Into a Lie

I must have nodded. Or maybe I said nothing at all. But the next thing I knew, we were walking into the courtroom.

My mind was shutting down. I wasn’t in control anymore. I had entered freeze mode—a full trauma response.

The courtroom blurred. I was barely registering anything. I was aware that something terrible was happening, but I couldn’t stop it. It was happening to me.

Everything moved too fast.

I stood before the judge. The room felt like it was tilting.

When asked if I was satisfied with my counsel, I said, “I don’t know.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to say, No, this man is betraying me! He’s lying!

I wanted to tell the judge that I had been ambushed, that I hadn’t been given time to process, to think, to weigh my options.

When asked if I was on medication or had any mental condition that might prevent me from understanding the plea deal, I wanted to say, Yes!

I had PTSD. I had depression. I was terrified. I was not thinking clearly. I was on medication.

But I was too detached and in a state of traumatic shock to speak or to summon air that is needed to form words that one might hear.

A Last, Desperate Attempt

As I stood before the judge, I knew I had to slow this down.

I had to fight—even if I could barely form words.

When asked if I was satisfied with my counsel, the only thing I could manage was:

"I don’t know."

What a fool! My mind screamed at me. Tell the judge the truth! Tell him this lawyer has failed you!

I searched for a way out, a moment to speak up. When asked if I was on medication or had any mental condition that would prevent me from entering a plea deal, I hesitated.

Every part of me wanted to say yes.

"Yes, I have a trauma disorder. I have Major Depression. I have an anxiety disorder. I am not thinking clearly. I am on medication."

But I didn’t say it.

I couldn’t say it because I lacked the capacity to draw in air and force it across vocal chords that would utter words of truth.

Forced to Speak a Lie

Then came the final question.

“Are you in fact guilty?”

Everything in me screamed No.

Instead, I pointed at my lawyer and said, “That’s what he told me to say for the purpose of this plea deal.” That was it.

That was my plea.

Not a “Yes, Your Honor.” Not a confession. Just a statement that I was parroting what I’d been coached to say. My lawyer had spoken for me almost the entire time.

He entered the plea. He confirmed everything. He led me—like a lamb to slaughter.

I shook his hand afterward. Why? I don’t know. Trauma does strange things. I should’ve pulled away, but I didn’t have the strength.

Suborning Perjury?

Here’s what I’ve always wondered.

If a lawyer knows their client is guilty—because the client confessed—and still allows them to lie on the stand, it’s called suborning perjury. That’s how we define “knowing.”

But what if it goes the other way?

What if a lawyer knows their client is innocent—and still coaches them to say they’re guilty?

Isn’t that just as wrong?

Even if the law doesn’t see it that way, common sense does.

To any layperson, this feels like the same thing. It is the same thing. Morally. Rationally. In every meaningful way.

My lawyer knew I was innocent. Not suspected. Not assumed. He knew. And yet, he stood beside me in a courtroom and helped me plead guilty to a crime that never happened.

A Crime That Never Happened

As I was led away, a court officer pulled me aside to draw blood for DNA records.

I tried to protest. “This plea deal makes it sound like I committed a crime.” He didn’t care. No one did.

No one ever talked about what actually happened that day in 2004. No evidence was reviewed. No facts were examined. No truth was spoken.

Just a quick hearing. A rushed judgment. A courtroom full of people too ready to move on.

And a handshake with the villain who had silenced me.

That’s all it took to permanently alter the course of my life.

All because the system wanted a win. All because my lawyer, who knew I was the victim, coached me into silence.

All because no one—no one—listened.

Why the Rush?

Why the urgency? Why couldn’t he have warned me on the phone? Why couldn’t I have had a night to think, to speak to someone I trusted, to feel the weight of the decision I was being coerced into making?

Because letting me think was the last thing anyone wanted.

My silence was convenient. My trauma, my fear, my confusion—they all served the system better than my voice ever could. If I had been given time—even the hour-long trip to Durham—I would have been ready to say no. No, no, no! I would have realized that an actual prison would be no worse than the virtual prison created by this plea deal.

But this—this was by design.

Despair weighed upon me as I wandered the dark Durham night. The shelter was full, so I tried to sleep on the grounds of Duke West Campus. No signs warned against trespassing. I didn’t feel comfortable so I left and taking a shortcut I scaled a 4-foot rock wall, unaware of doing anything wrong.

Then, as if summoned by fate, a police car appeared.

A block down the road, its lights flickered in the night. The car slowed, then stopped. My stomach clenched as the officer stepped out, approaching me with a cold authority.

“License."

The request made no sense. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Why were they stopping me?

And then, those dreaded words. Words that had already shattered my life once before.

"Warrant for your arrest."

Time collapsed. My thoughts spiraled. A warrant? For what?

Then came the explanation—something about using someone’s credit card without permission.

I couldn’t breathe.

A credit card?

Panic surged through me. How? I hadn’t even had the chance to meet anyone with a credit card since my release from jail. How could I have committed a felony without even knowing it?

I barely had time to process the accusation before cold metal closed around my wrists. Handcuffs. Again.

As they led me away, my mind raced to make sense of the impossible.

How the hell did this happen?

A Rabbit Hole of Betrayal

To understand this new nightmare, we have to go back—back to a time before Ana, before jail, before my life unraveled.

I had once been part of therapy groups in Durham, trying to build a community, trying to heal. That’s where I met Kathy.

She knew I had worked with people diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)—once called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)—a condition made infamous by movies like Sybil. It was rare, misunderstood, and yet, here it was, again, threading itself into my story.

Before my time on Holloway Street, before the assault that would alter my life, I had briefly lived in a spare room offered by a friend, Elaine. During that time, Kathy and I became intimate.

Then, one night, everything changed.

In an instant, she transformed—her voice, her body language—childlike.

It was as if I was suddenly in the presence of a child in an adult’s body.

I freaked out. I pulled away and got dressed immediately.

It didn’t matter that she was an adult. It felt like I was with a child.

Kathy soon returned to her boyfriend and Elaine wanted to live alone. I moved into the home of Kathy and her boyfriend —sleeping in the same room as her son, on the bottom bunk. But our relationship had become twisted, toxic.

She demanded my attention, needed me to play the role of therapist. I had already explained how inappropriate that would be after what had happened and I wasn’t licensed and practicing at that point.

Some of her other personalities were angry at me.

Some were obsessed with me.

Some were jealous—especially when I spent time with my girlfriend, Shonda.

The situation was untenable.

And then came Christmas.

The Credit Card That Would Ruin Me

December 2003—less than a year before Ana’s attack.

Kathy wanted to give me a gift.

She offered to pay for my website domain renewal—the same poetry website I had started with Lynn back in 1995.

The life I had shared with Lynn felt so close, and yet, like an entirely different lifetime.

We sat together as she entered her credit card details into my GoDaddy account. It was her choice.

Neither of us thought much about the card being saved on file.

At the time, it meant nothing. But that decision—the smallest, most mundane act—would later become my undoing.

A Dangerous Shift

Tensions escalated.

Kathy became more unpredictable, more hostile.

One night, things turned dangerous.

I felt threatened—physically and sexually.

I ran.

Outside, hands shaking, I called Shonda. She offered me a place to stay, a bed in the back of her family’s store.

Then, I called the police.

The authorities came. They didn’t arrest Kathy, but the report was on record—a crime of a sexual nature, with me as the victim.

I should have seen the warning signs then. But I didn’t.

And now, here I was—being arrested. Because of her.

The Forgotten Charge

Fast-forward to 2005, after Ana, after my release from jail.

I had forgotten about the GoDaddy domain.

My cards on file had no funds, so Kathy’s was automatically charged.

Instead of asking for her card to be removed, instead of seeing this for what it was—a mistake—she pressed charges.

The charge? Felony credit card fraud.

The amount? $15.

Fifteen dollars.

And I was back in a cell.

Trapped in the System Again

This time, I spent a month in jail, mostly in protective custody.

The same lawyer—the one handling my pending trial—was assigned to this nonsense case.

"I’ll enter a plea to misdemeanor larceny," he told me when he got around to contacting me at all, after I had been there almost a month!

"You’ll be released right away. No court appearance necessary."

I should have been furious but I was in such a state of shock during this period of time. I was detached from feelings and living life as if in a bad dream.

Misdemeanor larceny? Over a clerical error?

A System That Doesn't Care

I was too numb and detached to feel the anger that I feel as I write this almost 20 years later.

I was too beaten down, too traumatized to feel the full weight of my indignation.

But looking back?

This shouldn’t have happened.

A competent lawyer—one who actually cared—would have had this dismissed immediately. Instead, my public defender took the path of least resistance, pushing me through a legal system that wasn’t about justice, only efficiency.

I just wanted out.

So, I did not protest when he told me what he was going to do. As soon as I was free, I left Durham—straight for Chapel Hill.

Because even in homelessness, I had learned: some places were safer than others and Chapel Hill was safer.

It’s May 2005.

I stepped out of the jail into the late morning light, wearing only the dark green shirt, shorts, and socks I had on the night Ana attacked me. These were the same clothes, still stained with my own dried blood. The moment I crossed that threshold, I felt exposed—marked. I pulled my book bag close to my body and tried to move quickly, avoiding the gaze of anyone who might see me leaving the jail, as if shame itself were chasing me down the street.

The first thing I needed was clothing and a meal. My only option was Urban Ministries, the homeless shelter. I knew if I was lucky, I’d get a bed, but space was never guaranteed.

A Lawyer Who Didn’t Fight

I met with my lawyer briefly after my release and I may have seen him or one of his representatives only two times during the entire seven months I spent in jail. He looked me over, taking stock of me, and said something that left me reeling:

"I’m going to have to put you on the stand. No one will believe you’re capable of anything violent."

I had expected that he would have known that I could only be a victim in this matter but I was terrified. We all know how well the first time I told those detectives what happened. What had he done for me all these months?

I wanted him to prepare me but he said “no.” I was thinking, “really, the last time I tried telling the truth, we know how that went?”

I brought up the bloody clothes, explaining that they would prove I was the victim. The evidence was right there—the blood was mine, no one else’s.

Surely, that mattered?

"We can’t use them," he said, dismissively. "You wore them after leaving jail."

My stomach dropped. Of course I had worn them—I had nothing else! He had seven months to secure the clothes, to preserve them as evidence, to do something that would have helped me. I had written to him over and over, desperate for help. He had failed me. Everyone had failed me.

Survival on the Streets

The shelter wasn’t always available. On the nights I couldn’t get in, I wandered the streets, noting where small groups of homeless people settled.

One night, some of us found a quiet space near a church, though I wasn’t sure we were even allowed to be there. It didn’t matter—I just needed a place to disappear, to sleep, though sleep rarely came.

The shame weighed on me constantly. Some days, I couldn’t even get a shower or a shave. I felt like my humiliation was written across my face for the world to see. To escape, I started spending my days at Duke University’s libraries, hiding among the students.

I rode the campus buses between Duke East and West Campus, hoping I didn’t look too out of place. I found odd jobs that helped me get small amounts of money—just enough to eat. Sometimes, my parents and sister sent me a little money, though what I really needed was for them to step up and help me find a real lawyer. But I accepted what little they sent, because

I had no choice.

I had yet to reclaim the most minimal self-love that would have caused me to be outraged by the breadcrumbs that my family was offering.

At night, I noticed that some of Duke’s libraries stayed open 24 hours. One of them had a computer lab next to a quiet room with couches. I started sneaking in, napping there when I could. But it was never real sleep—just a restless, uneasy dozing, my body always tense. What if someone found me?

What if I was thrown out? I was in my 30s, but I wasn’t a student. I was homeless.

The uncertainty of the trial loomed over me, a shadow stretching into every part of my life. I was terrified.

Wearing a Lifetime of Toxic Shame

What I was experiencing wasn’t just about this moment—it was about a lifetime of being made to feel wrong.

I had grown up in a toxic family, where I was cast as the scapegoat. No matter what I did, I was the problem, the burden. The one who was too sensitive. The one who made things difficult.

It was only later, after everything, that I came across a book that made me understand: Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members by Sherrie Campbell. It described exactly what I had lived through. The way narcissistic families paint themselves as saints while blaming the scapegoat for everything wrong. How they turn the victim into the villain. How they make sure the scapegoat never truly feels like they belong.

I had escaped it for a time. First, in college, where I built friendships that gave me my first taste of real validation. Then, with Celta and Lynn, I had found love—love that made me feel worthwhile.

But then I lost Lynn. And the world took everything away from me. And now, I was back in the role they had always cast me in.

I was the scapegoat. And this time, the world wasn’t just shaming me—it was trying to destroy me.

I carried that shame everywhere, like a second skin or a shroud.

A Family That Left Me to Rot

I was angry—so angry.

Because I knew. I knew that if something serious happened to my brother or my sister, the family would rally. They always had. I had seen it firsthand.

But when it came to me?

I was an afterthought.

It was a cruel, maddening contradiction—the source of my deepest confusion and my deepest pain. On one hand, I was fed the words, We love you.

You’re part of the family. On the other, they stood by and watched me drown, offering nothing but silence.

I didn’t want to see it for what it was. I couldn’t. So I gaslit myself, twisting their indifference into something that resembled care. I clung to the scraps of their attention, desperate to believe that they loved me, that I mattered to them. Because facing the truth—that I was truly alone—was a horror I wasn’t ready for.

But the cracks had been there for years. I just hadn’t wanted to look.

The Call That Changed Everything

My brother. John.

There was a time when he was my best friend. The bond between us felt solid—something that would never break. We laughed together, celebrated holidays together, shared memories that felt unshakable. I had no reason to believe anything had changed.

But it had.

One Christmas visit home, I met my niece Emily for the first time. She was shy at first, peeking at me from behind the couch. But as the night went on, she began to warm up, her tiny hand finding its way into mine.

I was charmed by her innocence—until she said something that sent a chill through me.

I noticed a mark near her eye. Gently, I asked, “What happened?”

Without hesitation, she answered. “Your brother did that.”

Not Dad. Not my father. She said, Your brother.

It was so small—a detail that might have slipped past me. But it didn’t. And then, I saw it with my own eyes.

Later that night, I witnessed my brother’s temper erupt. He grabbed Emily Whealton, my neice, lifted her off the floor, and shoved her against the wall. The thud, her small cry—it’s burned into me.

My blood ran cold. I had to report the suspected abuse of Emily Whealton by John Stephen Whealton. It was up to the people at Child Protective Services to determine whether John Stephen Whealton was abusing his children or not. It was not my job to make that determination.

The Consequence of Doing the Right Thing

I made the call.

Child Protective Services. Because that’s what you do. That’s what we swore to do as social workers—err on the side of the child. Report suspected abuse. Not judge, not decide—just report.

I wasn’t the enemy. I was the protector.

But to my family, I became something else entirely.

The police came. And with them, the family’s mask slipped. They closed ranks—not around Emily, but around John. It was a “private family matter,” they said. I was a traitor. The police, failing to uphold my anonymity, let everyone know who had made the call.

And just like that, I was cut off. 

John Stephen Whealton, my own brother, didn't want to clear his name in my eyes. So, it seemed that he was fine with the label of child abuser.

Gaslight and Silence

John at least had the decency to make his feelings clear—We’re done. And we were. Forever.

But my parents and my sister? They never said those words. There was no confrontation. No fallout. Just… nothing.

And that was worse.

Because everything they did—or rather, everything they didn’t do—was cloaked in this cruel ambiguity. There were no accusations. No fights. Just a quiet, chilling absence where care should have been.

And through it all, they still sent mixed signals—birthday cards, the occasional phone call, just enough to keep me doubting myself. I told myself, If they hated me, they wouldn’t reach out at all, right?

But when disaster struck me—when I was brutalized, arrested, thrown into a nightmare—I discovered the truth.

There was no rallying around me.

No lifeline.

No questions. No concern.

The Disaster They Ignored

When I lost Lynn—my wife in every way that mattered—it felt like my world had collapsed. My career had been ripped from me. I was drowning in grief, homelessness, and injustice.

But it wasn’t just hardship. It was catastrophe. The kind that levels a life.

The kind where you reach out—not for a handout, but for human connection. For family.

And I had none.

They could have done so much. It didn’t even have to be money—though my grandparents' house, sitting unused and empty nearby, could have been a refuge from homelessness. Of course, I was not thinking about that at the time.

I needed to believe that they cared because I had no one else. I also didn’t have any self-worth or self-love. Not yet.

But no.

No visit. No phone call. No lawyer. No belief.

No love.

The True Face of Gaslighting

And here’s where the madness of it all becomes clear.

I never once heard, We’re angry at you for what you did to John. They never connected their betrayal to anything I had done.

On the surface, everything seemed fine—We love you, we care about you, you’re family.

But their actions—or their silence—told the truth.

That’s the thing about gaslighting: it doesn’t have to be words. Sometimes, it’s the absence of words. The void. The unbearable dissonance between what you’re told and what you live.

And when you live in that space long enough, you lose yourself. You question every instinct. You start to believe that maybe you’re the problem.

The Hardest Truth

It wasn’t the abandonment that shattered me the most. It was the coldness.

Because even if they had said:
“You broke our trust.”
“You hurt the family.”
“We can’t forgive you.”

At least that would have been real.

But there was no anger. Just absence.

I wasn’t even worth hating.

And when you’re left with that, how can you not believe—deep in your bones—that you are worthless?

The Final Question

I was left to rot.

Not because they couldn’t help.

But because they chose not to.

So tell me…

If your own family won’t stand by you—who will?

The Trial That Hung Over Me Like a Death Sentence

Every second outside of jail was spent in the waiting. Waiting for my name to be called in court. Waiting to find out if my life would be destroyed.

I spent my days playing mental chess, reliving every moment, trying to understand how this had happened. How Ana had set this trap so perfectly.

How she knew that all she had to do was say something, and the system would make it true.

And I wondered—how much more of my life would they take? Would I ever get a job again? Would anyone ever love me again? Would I ever get to be me again?

Or had the system already decided that I didn’t matter?

Dear reader, if you are feeling overwhelmed by everything that has happened over the past dozen or more chapters then you know what it was like for me. There seemed to be no end and no limit to the depths of suffering I was experiencing.  

I had lost the love of my life. I had lost my home. I had lost my career. Most of that happened in one month - August of 2000. Then in March of 2001, I had to surrender my clinical Social Work license.  

I saved for this chapter the details about how the case of the false allegation by John Freifeld that I had made harassing phone calls was resolved. The lawyer who appealed the case was able to get the phone records for one of the two days that I was alleged to have called Freifeld on five separate times. He got the records for the day before and after just for good measure. It proved that I had never called Freifeld. I knew that was what would be found. So, we could prove that it was a lie. Right?

 Wrong. For some reason, my lawyer couldn't get phone records for the other day that I was supposed to have called Freifeld. It was within a week of the other day so that made no sense. While it was a minor misdemeanor, it's the principle of the matter. It was wrong. 

My lawyer said the infamous words "the truth doesn't matter, only what you can prove." I had thought that we were innocent until proven guilty.

Can you believe that? Someone can make stuff up about you and force you to spend a month of your life in jail on a lie. You will recall the humiliating way in which I was brought to Wilmington from Durham. In a cage with chains on me! Like I was a wild and dangerous animal!  If you have read this far into this book you probably know that I am about as dangerous as a fluffy bunny or a butterfly.  

Then I was back in Durham trying to put my life back together, little by little, and this happened in October of 2004. This was the kidnapping of Bruce Whealton by the state. The name of my attacker was Ana, she was the landlord's wife, Jimmy's wife.  

This was a form of prolonged and seemingly never-ending suffering of biblical proportions. 

I felt like I was experiencing shell shock. Literally.  

If you are wondering what else happened during these four years from late 2000 through my victimization at the hands of Ana, there is not much to tell other than what I said. A bad nightmare of being profoundly depressed, without hope, poor and homeless. It was just a blur. I am not saying I have amnesia, but it is now very much a blur.

I cannot even remember 9/11 as a significant day! That is how overwhelmed I was.  

It was October of 2004, and despite having done no wrong to anyone and having led a good life, always treating others with kindness and compassion, I found myself abandoned and in jail. Also, it should have been obvious that I was the victim here. My victimization was written in blood on the clothes that were still down in a locker room at the jailhouse – they would stay there from the day of my arrest until May when I got out.

When you get assigned a court-appointed lawyer, they take their sweet time coming to visit you. My lawyer didn't seem to care about me at all or how I was doing. I would write to him frequently, but it was close to impossible to get an appointment with him. I saw him over the next few months once and I saw someone else from the public defender's office just once. Each time it was for not more than fifteen minutes.  

This was extremely terrifying for me. I was placed for a while in the general population. I met people who were guilty of real crimes, violent crimes. I met someone who had been on death row. I didn't feel safe. The guards seemed to have no compassion for individuals who might be innocent and are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty.  

My body was reacting in strange ways to this captivity. I was having panic attacks where I would feel overwhelmed by surges of adrenaline. Thinking I was going to die. Feeling short of breath. I would push the button in my cell as a way to cry out to see a doctor or nurse, but no one cared. At least no one cared for a good long time until they put me into protective custody.  

I also discovered new things about my gender and how we think of gender. The first signs of that were in jail. I met a very effeminate person who went by the name Lulu. She was born male but identified as female.

She was an African American woman who was born a man. I am sure she had male genitalia. I didn't care.

She was very kind and sweet to me. I needed to be close to someone. No, you don't get that much privacy in the Durham County jail... nothing remotely intimate happened. Not physically intimate.

I thought she was attractive though. I only remember noticing her legs and her face.

While I did find some comfort and humanity from Lulu, there was no way to change the reality of what was happening to me. My entire life hung in the balance. I was terrified every moment of every day.

I had reached out to my so-called family from the depths of my pain and desperation. Surely, a mother would be moved by the unjust suffering of her firstborn son. For reasons I will never understand, nor can I forgive, both parents abandoned their own flesh and blood - they abandoned the son who shared the same name as his father - I am Bruce Martin Whealton Jr and he is Sr. 

I spent seven months in jail! Seven nightmarish months.

Despite my desperate pleas, my family lacked human compassion and empathy. What little capacity they once had for somewhat normal human emotions had died. My sister also could have done something. They all had the means to rescue me. They knew just how horrifying this was, and yet they did NOTHING! 

It would be literally impossible for me to not act to hire a lawyer and free my siblings or a parent, or even a son or daughter if I had one.

They didn't even come to visit me! That is an act of evil in the faith in which they raised me. It is a mortal sin!

Their capacity for ignoring the pain of someone they were supposed to love knew no limits or bounds. 

I don't know why I expected them to act like real human beings. They had been demonstrating their inhumanity for a long time now - since Lynn got sick in August of 2000.  

Years later, my second wife said that you don't treat your enemies that way! That's true. Their actions were evil!

The faith in which I was raised does not allow for us to act this way. Everything about how they acted over these years goes against everything I was taught as a Christian. I have since metaphorically divorced myself from them. They are my ex-family. 

I had kept in touch from time to time with my sister. She said she and our parents (my ex-parents) knew I was innocent of everything I was ever accused of doing. That wasn’t surprising, actually.

I know that I did not deserve this to happen to me. 

My so-called family could not even be bothered to bring me clothes to wear when I was released from jail.  

I was released finally, in May, to await the trial.

I moved to Chapel Hill where it was safer. I was staying in the homeless shelter.  After my release, I met with my lawyer for thirty minutes, if that. My lawyer had told me that I would sit on the stand and tell my story and that no one in the jury would believe that I was capable of doing what I was accused of doing. That was the plan.

He said he knew I was innocent. He should have known I was the victim too. I had asked him if he could test the bloody clothing that I had been wearing. He said that since I wore it outside of jail after I was released this could not be done to help my case. 

He had seven months to do something like this! I had written to him countless times when I was in jail.

A Guilty Plea for the Victim

I called my lawyer on a day in March of 2006 and he told me to come to court immediately. He didn't say why. I got on a bus and rushed there. I didn't want to make my case any worse than it was.  

My attacker should be the one going to prison. Ana should be in prison for what she did. 

I was out of breath when I arrived in front of the courtroom. My lawyer was there, and the prosecutor saw me for the first time. You might think she would look at me and drop the whole case, laughing - I looked so pitiful and small.

My lawyer scared me, telling me that I would spend 10 years in jail if I didn't take a plea. I was in total shock. What was the big rush? Why was he telling me this in the hall outside the courtroom? 

He could have at least told me something before I headed to court!

My lawyer insisted that I knew this was coming and that I knew what I was looking at if I was found guilty. That is patently false. He had never discussed anything like that.  

He previously had told me to expect a trial. He also never hinted at the punishment that might come out of the matter. NEVER! It remained as some abstract idea that hung over me like a shroud for nearly two years.

He had promised that a jury of my peers would see the truth and free me. Then I would pursue justice against Ana - the perpetrator!

He knew that I was not only innocent but a victim according to his own prior statement to me. 

One usually thinks that a person chooses to take a plea. This implies some time to think about the matter and contemplate the decision. I was still winded. I was hardly in my right mind. The last thing they wanted was for me to think about anything.

I walked down the aisle to stand in front of the judge. He began to speak. He asked if I was satisfied with my legal representation. This was my chance to protest this farce. I began to talk but my soft voice only managed to say, "I don't know."

The reality of what was happening began to settle in and I wanted out of this. I don't think the judge was picking up on what I was trying to tell him. My voice was soft as a mouse. I was scared, I had no allies. I couldn't get enough air to vocalize my words clear enough to be heard and understood.

I have seen on TV shows and movies where they ask the defendant if they are on drugs that might impair one's judgment when entering into a plea deal or if a person had a mental illness that would impair that ability to enter into a plea deal.

I would have answered that "yes I am on mind-altering drugs" though they were prescribed and "yes, I am suffering from a mental illness that would impair my judgment."  I was suffering from anxiety, major depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. “So, I am not competent to be entering into a plea deal.”

That’s what I would have said.

I had been traumatized by the entire matter that resulted in me standing in front of a judge on this particular day in my life history up to this point. 

The judge asked if I was in fact guilty. I said, "Well, that's what my lawyer told me to say for the purpose of this plea deal but... " I was trying to explain. 

Sometimes on courtroom shows, they depict a person elocuting to the “crime.” That means they say what happened. 

Had anyone asked me to say what happened on that October day in 2004, this would not be the culmination of a plea deal. I would have described how I had been brutally attacked in my home resulting in every item of clothing being soaked in blood all the way down to my socks and sneakers. It would have been a statement of my victimization and my inability to even defend myself.

But no one was concerned about what really happened. They wanted this wrapped up before the real victim, who was being treated like the perpetrator had a chance to think about what is happening and what he is doing.  

Guilt was an abstract term. No one in that courtroom heard anything resembling the truth as to what happened back in October of 2004. What I mean is that in no way did we talk about the events in question.

No one cared what really happened.  

My fate and future were sealed. All hope is gone.

The early morning hours were a blur as I was hauled off to jail. I walked on autopilot, my mind unable to process the reality of what was happening.

The truth—the only thing I had left—felt like it was slipping through my fingers. The truth collided with the reality of my situation. The police, who were supposed to protect me, now held me captive. Just hours ago, I had been the helpless victim of a brutal attack, begging for help and justice against the ferocious creature that attacked me. And yet here I was, locked away behind bars, treated as if I were the one at fault.

The cell door was cold and heavy, closing with an echoing clang like I was sealed within a steel coffin. I was still wearing the padded suicide outfit, a degrading garment designed to strip away any remaining shreds of my dignity. While I am not a deity, I can use the word crucifixion because of the humiliation and punishment despite having down no wrong.

It seemed like the nightmare I couldn't wake from was now my cruel reality. I vacillated between numbness, having gone away in my mind, and bitterly weeping. Sleep was nearly impossible, and hopelessness was a heavy weight on my heart and lungs.

Shattered by Shame

Although I couldn't fully comprehend it at the time, I knew that eventually I would feel anger towards Ana for her actions. However, in this moment, all I could feel was an overwhelming sense of shame and disbelief. She had deceived others and ruined my reputation, making me into a villain rather than a victim. The detectives had bought her lies without hesitation, and she had manipulated reality to make it appear as though the opposite of the truth were true.

In the morning, a guard escorted me to the medical area of the jail, where I received my prescribed medications. But what stuck with me most was my meeting with the social worker. The words she spoke replayed in my mind over and over like a cruel refrain: "No matter what happens, there will always be people who believe you're guilty." The finality of her statement weighed heavily on me.

Even if the truth of my innocence and victimization were proven, the accusation would always leave a stain that could never fully be washed away. It would be forever etched into criminal database records, following me wherever I went.

The Arraignment

I was shuffled into a courtroom with others awaiting arraignment. The scene was chaos—lawyers rushing from one defendant to another, prosecutors skimming over cases they knew little about. I tried desperately to catch the attention of one of the public defenders, a woman I thought might help. I tried desperately to get her to listen to my story: how I had been covered in blood, how I was the victim, how none of this made sense.

She barely looked at me. “Tell this to your lawyer when you’re assigned one,” she said briskly, moving on to someone else. I was left standing there, hollow, and helpless. My voice didn’t matter here. My innocence didn’t matter.

How many times must I be victimized? First it was by Ana, then the detectives, now this lawyer who is supposed to represent those who are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Abandoned by Family

I clung to the hope that my family would save me. Surely, my parents—flawed as our relationship was—wouldn’t let me face this alone. I called them, my voice shaking with desperation. “Mom, Dad, please help me. I can’t be here. I can’t cope with this.”

Their response was chillingly detached. My father’s voice was flat and emotionless: “No, we can’t afford it.”

I pleaded, explaining the charges, the $75,000 bail, and what this would mean for my future. Nothing moved them. Not my pain, not my fear, not my utter desperation. Even strangers might have shown more compassion than my own family.

I thought of the scene in Return of the Jedi, where Luke, writhing in agony, cries out, “Father, please help me!” Even Darth Vader, a symbol of evil, had been moved to act to save his son. But my family? They left me to rot.

Reality vs. Truth

After returning to the jail, I learned about the reason for the charges against me: kidnapping and second-degree sexual offense. I saw Ana’s statement, her lies crafted into a version of events that didn’t come close to matching reality. And there had been witnesses. They were not in the room after she locked herself inside with me, but they would have seen and heard enough.

She claimed I had pulled her into my room and attacked her. But none of it made sense. Witnesses saw her enter willingly. The layout of my apartment didn’t match her story. The physical evidence—my blood covering the room—contradicted her every word. And yet, none of that seemed to matter.

In jail, the truth was meaningless. Reality was what the system decided it to be, and that narrative would replace the truth.

The Weight of Fear

The broadcast news made things worse. Inmates get curious about why someone is there. Since I was not being treated as the victim that I was, the news reporters in my part of the world had no obligation to protect the identity of the accused.

How much more insanely terrifying can a story get? News reporters would feel obligated to protect the identity of a victim, even though the so-called victim was actually the perpetrator. The news reporters had no such obligation to protect my identity as a victim because I was falsely assumed to be the perpetrator.

They reported on the case, referring to Ana as “a girl,” as if she were some innocent child instead of a 26-year-old woman. The narrative painted me as the predator and her as the helpless victim. In jail, the word “sexual offense” carried weight. It marked me as a target.

I shared my story with some of the other inmates. I was already in so much shock that someone had to explain that they had to protect me because the news had made it appear that I had sexually harmed a child.

I might have faced violence in the jail for having been believed to have harmed a child sexually. Some of the inmates knew the truth and protected me from potential harm.

I couldn’t help think that so many women are actual victims of sexual violence. It is a heinous crime. I had helped them heal. And Ana had targeted me!

How evil is that?!

This added to the complexity of this case and the reversal of truth and justice.

My case defied so many expectations and the normal way in which women are usually the victims. Yet, she was most definitely the violent perpetrator and I was the true victim.

With the news falsely characterizing her as a girl, this put me at risk and added to the threat that I actually faced and the perceptions I had of threats.

My body was stuck in survival mode, my heart pounding in my chest as my mind zigzagged between panic and despair throughout the day.

I found myself surrounded by dangerous individuals, people who had committed violent crimes, when I unexpectedly encountered a man who had been on death row.

In an eerie twist of fate, I had previously crossed paths with the sister of his cellmate on death row back when I worked as a Social Worker III, essentially a therapist, at the mental health center in Duplin County. This man, whom I met at the Durham County Jail, was here for a new trial. Somehow, I discovered that his cellmate was Johnny Street Parker.

In the tight-knit community of Clinton, NC, news spread quickly, and everyone knew one another. It felt almost inevitable when one of my clients, the sister of Johnny Street Parker, walked into my office wearing oversized sunglasses, her shoulders slumped, as though she wanted to disappear. Her brother, according to what I had read, had brutally murdered a man with an axe—a crime tangled with drugs. The victim, who was gay, had been emasculated; the details of how this was accomplished with an axe were unclear, but the victim's mutilated body part had been left at the bottom of a staircase.

I could sense the heavy burden of shame weighing on my client, the deep embarrassment of being related to someone known for such a horrific act.

Years after my time at Duplin-Sampson County Mental Health, I found myself face-to-face with this man who had spent time in a cell alongside Johnny Street Parker. On death row! He had kidnapped a guy with his girlfriend who killed the guy to impress him. He was here for a retrial.

I felt like an outsider, lost in a place that was like I had been kidnapped.

As I sat alone in my cell, my mind was a storm of conflicting thoughts. I had never been in a fight—not once. Yet here I was, caught up in a situation based on a lie. I had used a punching bag before, for exercise and to manage stress, imagining scenarios where I stood up for myself. But in reality, I had always shied away from confrontation, afraid of causing harm.

Memories of living with Lynn came flooding back, along with the times I hit the bag after an intense argument. Lynn would often follow me, insisting, "I am not done talking," as she entered the garage. My reaction was always the same—immediately halting my punches, driven by an instinct that occurred faster than conscious thought, terrified of even the slightest chance of hurting her.

Unimaginable! Of course, I loved her and didn't want to harm her, but the instinct to stop was more profound than love—it was an innate aversion to violence. The same instinctively gentle hands held Celta, who was even more fragile than Lynn. I remembered the moment we posed for a photo, and Celta began to fall. In a fraction of a second, before my mind could plan, my body moved to catch her without causing harm.

The notion of me as someone who could inflict pain was almost laughable if it weren't so tragically real. Yet, it was this very idea that now defined my current predicament, leaving me caught between my peaceful nature and the harsh reality surrounding me.

So many days and nights consisted of me in my cell alone wondering if I would receive medications. If I was actually let out of my cell, if the nurse did not forget my medications when she came, I could ask for a pain killer or another medication that existed as a prn. medication.

The mere existence of this ability to request prn medications for unusual distress was an anomaly in the circumstances that were characterized by indifference. It is an understatement to say that this did not reflect the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty.

It may have been good or bad, it’s hard to tell. The time when I had a blister that made walking painful. I must have gotten my socks and shoes wet coming from the shower. Eventually I was taken to see the nurse and given something for the pain and the blister was treated. 

Desperation and Questions

Would I ever be free? Would I ever find someone who could love me, knowing the accusations that would always linger? Would anyone see me as more than this false image Ana had created? The questions consumed me.

I was writing letters to my assigned lawyer, pouring out my side of the story, hoping someone—anyone—would listen. The waiting felt endless. The truth felt useless. And the system, like my family, seemed intent on leaving me to fend for myself.

“The truth was all I had, but it wasn’t enough. The system had already decided who I was, and nothing I said or did seemed to matter. I was left alone with my thoughts, the toxic shame of my past colliding with the weight of this new betrayal. I was no longer a person—I was a case number, a defendant, a shadow of who I used to be. Would justice ever find me? Or would I be forever trapped in this lie?”

I had not asked for an ambulance to come. What was on my mind was being able to show the police just how badly I had been attacked.

I also was worried that I might have gotten some of her body fluids on me. I had not hit her in any way that would cause her to bleed, but I had no idea who she was and what diseases someone in this neighborhood might have.

I lived near the Durham police station, so the police arrived quickly.

Within about 20 or 30 minutes, the police arrived in response to my 911 call.

I heard sounds outside my room and realized that the police were entering from the front door to the building.

The first police officer held out his hand, saying, "Don't come too close." I understood what he was concerned about. He didn't want my blood on him.

There were two police officers that arrived.

At this point, I was not considering how bizarre this event might seem to the police because quite frankly, the police didn’t show any sense that they didn’t believe what I had said.

The police officers started taking my statement about what happened to me. I did recall hearing a question by a police officer about why I let her inside. I could only say that it happened so fast, and I was taken by surprise.

Next, the police officers started taking witness statements. They were all consistent in stating that everything happened very fast. No, no one had any idea who this person was.

In my account of what happened, I said that I had been expecting someone who might not know which room I was in. I had heard the words “where’s Bruce?” and came out to see a stranger.

No, I had no idea why anyone would do this to me.

I could hear the witnesses speaking to the police officers and no one had suggested that they had any idea who this person was. While they didn’t see what happened inside my room, at least one person noted that she had left without a scratch.

I explained to the police that she had said something bizarre that made no sense. She had nearly yelled "why do you keep calling me?"

I explained that my immediate reaction was to ask her, "who are you?" but she never answered that question.

I was confused that they had not done this on their own. Why were the police not taking photographs of me and the room where I was assaulted?

Before I knew it, the ambulance had arrived and they were attending to my cuts and injuries before the police had taken photographs. The police had NEVER taken any photographs during the entire time they were there.

I had little hope for justice since we had no idea who attacked me or how to find the person.

Then I heard a phone ringing in my room. I had not noticed previously that she was carrying a phone. She must have dropped it or accidentally thrown it while assaulting me. That was why she had been trying to get back into the room.

The phone was behind a pile of books on the floor. My phone was in my hand. This had to be the perpetrator’s phone.

I gave the phone to the police officers saying, "this might help you to find who did this to me."

Having given the police her phone there was hope that maybe I could get some justice. Maybe they would find her.

There would not be anything else with which to identify her! She was the attacker and left without a scratch. The only bloody markers in my apartment room were from me - it was my blood. It was my bloody thumbprint on the door frame.

She had not fallen and tripped herself leaving her own blood anywhere.

I felt a deep sense of confusion; this was beyond bizarre. I figured this was just another very bad experience in a bad neighborhood. The lack of curiosity by the police could be explained by the notion that they must have heard and seen people do crazy things in this part of town.

I didn’t expect these police officers to answer a question like, “What woman locks themselves inside a room with a guy and then attacks that person? Repeatedly punching the person?”

I had not noticed anything that would indicate why she was able to slice open my face and cause me to bleed so profusely. On the one hand, she was acting like she was high on drugs which might explain the sudden eruption of violence, but why would she ask for me in particular? Plus, a woman who is in the habit of using drugs would not have had a ring on her fingers.

The paramedics were able to get the bleeding to stop, and then they left at about the same time as the police left.

The story is about to get much stranger, though.

This section dives into one of the most harrowing experiences of my life: not only surviving a violent assault in my own home but also the devastating aftermath of being disbelieved by the very people sworn to protect me. Here, I recount the assault by Ana—a sudden, unprovoked attack while I was simply minding my own business—and the surreal nightmare that followed when I found myself treated as a suspect rather than a victim.

That night, instead of feeling reassured by the presence of law enforcement, I faced an interrogation that felt more accusatory than investigative. It was a disorienting experience, one I could barely process as it unfolded. In my naivety, I assumed the detectives were simply gathering information to understand what had happened. I believed they would approach the situation logically, with an open mind. Instead, I quickly learned how skewed their perspective could be.

Adding to my confusion and frustration, there were witnesses—people who saw Ana enter my home and leave just moments later, unscathed. They weren’t in the room when she locked the door behind her, but they saw enough to corroborate my account. Still, their testimony did little to alter the course of events that night.