Ghosts Of The Past

"Did you hear that?  She says and I swivel my head quickly to spy the middle aged Polynesian woman, her face stricken with fear.

Front of the Powell Home

Fali's eyes are transfixed on the dusty lines of the air vent that runs against the wall outside the bedroom where Josh and Susan Powell used sleep every night.  Until of course, Susan vanished without a trace in 2009, and Josh unceremoniously packed his bags and left.  Later, he would brutally kill his two young boys in a murderous house fire.

"Do you hear it?" Fali repeats her desperate question.  "No," I answer, "What did you hear?"  "Did you hear the crying?" she demands as she continues her gaze, uninterrupted at the air vent. "Sometimes it sounds like children crying," she describes the terrorizing sound to me, "sometimes it sounds like a moan, but a moan far far away.

Fali, her daughter Joanna and their family have lived in the home formerly owned by the Powell's for 2 months, and they say from the moment they turned the deadbolt, something just hasn't been right. That is why they moved out a couple of days ago.

Photographer Nick Steffens

Joanna is angry because she says, the property management company who  is renting the home out on behalf of the Powell trust, did not tell her about the tragic history of the home.  Joanna, whose family doesn't watch TV, says she hadn't even heard of the Powell's until neighbors filled her in a month ago.

The family has invited us into their lives and the home to do a story on their anger at the leasing company.  But it turns out their anger is eclipsed by their fear of this house.

In addition to the phantom cries of children Joanna says she found her toddler atempting to usher people away who don't exist, "no, no, go!" the little boy reportedly chirped to an empty wooden swing dangling motionless outside the Powell home.

Early one morning, as Joanna's nephew slept in the living room, the garage door came to life, rattling and groaning as it opened.  The nephew found himself standing in a dark garage, the door gaping open.

The day the family was told by neighbors of the history of the home they shared with the Powell's, they stood, huddled around a laptop, in the Powell's pre-fab kitchen tapping search words into Google.  They say every time they attempted to play an archived news story on Youtube of the mind boggling case of Susan and Josh Powell, the lights in the living room and kitchen would mysteriously shut down. After three attempts, and three blackouts, the family decided to stop tempting fate.

Powell Garage

As Joanna wrenched the key counterclockwise to let me in, I felt quick anticipation as I prepared to enter a home that has consumed literally hundreds of hours of my time over the last 6 years.

I can recall standing on the front stoop of this home in December of 2009, pondering why the glass window next to the door was broken, and calling my boss to tell him "I think something isn't right here."

What is most remarkable about being inside the Powell home, is how simply unremarkable it is.

Kitchen

It is clean, the carpet is relatively new, and the house has been redone inside since the Powell's lived here. There is no evidence that Susan and Josh ever even existed in this space.

The home doesn't feel like it was built with any particular passion, it is likely one of hundreds of houses, tossed on a slab of cement in the late 80's or early 90's in this part of West Valley City.  It is like one of a thousand Chrysler LeBaron's that rolled soullessly off of a Detroit assembly line around the same time this home was being propped up.

This house is empty, in more ways than one.   I suppose I expected to "feel" Susan's presence, or "sense" the supernatural from which Joanna and her mother were running away, when they packed their boxes, and loaded a moving van.  I didn't.  I was however feeling edgy, as though this is a place I shouldn't' be.  As if this nondescript place, in a sea of monotonous tract homes, should be treated with more respect than I was giving it.  As if this was a solemn shrine, encased, in drab vinyl siding from Sears.

I'm not inclined to believe in ghost stories, and I don't have a strong connection to the paranormal, but, for whatever reason, I believe that Joanna and her family have experienced "something" here, because it is clear, "something" did happen,but sadly, we may never know what.

How Dare You!

"You need to move off my lawn!" The man says, surrounded by all the trappings of suburban life.  He is shoe-horned into a pair of tight khakis shorts and is addressing an army of journalists camped out on the grass patch across the sidewalk from his lawn.  Although I know this thatch isn't actually his property, I'm not in the mood to argue, I'm focused on something more important, so I step off the Kentucky Blue onto the curb.  The "more important" is an equally as large army of FBI agents currently rifling through the records, and under the mattress inside the home of Utah's former Attorney General, John Swallow.  Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff have been under investigation for months, and are believed to have taken bribes and built a political machine, unrivaled (or perhaps yet undiscovered) in modern Utah politics.  The FBI and other state agencies have decided to serve search warrants on the homes of both men on this day.

Agents search home of John Swallow (Salt Lake Tribune)

The round man indignantly snatches a reporter's laptop off the grass he does not own, and drags it and it's attachments of plastic outlets, including a metallic hard drive, all jangle, and clank together like a high tech wind chime in a torrent blast.  I'm having trouble focusing on the stunned reporter as she yanks the computer out of the man's hands, because of the surreal event playing out across the street.  Two young boys, likely 8 and 10, have been tasked, likely by their parents, to sojourn to the Swallow's home.  The clueless toe heads are dutifully toting a plastic crate of store bought cookies.  I'm stunned.  The house is currently inhabited, by Swallow and his wife, but also by at least a dozen armed, and highly trained, and always on edge, FBI agents.  The boys innocently knock on the door and are met by a harried, federal agent, who is knee-deep in FBI sternness, but also understands, these poor kids have no idea what their mother has likely sent them to do.

Former Attorney General John Swallow

She opens the door and finds herself wrestling with the screen door while trying to balance the cookies, and use her leg as a broom to sweep the Swallow's family dog back into the house. The boys, still blissfully unaware of the minor chaos they have created in her world, pet the pup as he bobs and weaves around the agent's ankle.  Finally she wrangles the dog, stuffs the cookies under her arm and give a quick glance to the cameras across the street and yanks the screen door shut, the boys seem a bit confused, I can almost imagine their thoughts, "That's not how Missus Swallow acts when we bring cookies."

I'm debating heading over and asking the boys who told them to deliver snickerdoodles into the middle of the state's most high profile criminal investigation when a fine mist of water coats my face.  The angry neighbor in too short shorts and sensible Rockport shoes, has turned on the sprinklers, hoping for a frenzied retreat of soggy reporters. Most just snicker, cover the sensitive parts of their electronic equipment and move out of the gentle squirt.  "It's on a timer," he says arms folded, grinning and satisfied, as if he finally assembled a kitchen hutch from Ikea.

As I flick the water droplets off my shirt, a small man in a starched blue button down and ironed slacks saddles up to me, as if he has something to say, but he is silent.  I know he is preparing a monologue so I stand quietly and wait.  "So this is news?" He asks, as if I'm poolside at a squirrel skiing contest (which would be awesome if it existed)  I turn to him, as he stares at the modest ranch style home currently filled with agents, his eyes shaded by Rayban's.  "Well when search warrants are served at the homes of 2 former attorney's general in one day, I'd argue, yes, that is news," I say.

Former Attorney General Mark Shurtleff

He lazily shrugs off my explanation, "This has been going on for 2 years," he says continuing his gaze towards the home.  "What could you possibly say about this?" he asks with slight annoyance, I respond "probably something like: The investigation into 2 former attorney's general continues, both could be charged with felony crimes.  Maybe something like that?" I retort, again he's unimpressed.  "Do you live in this neighborhood?" I ask, "sort of, that's my father in laws home," he unfolds his arms long enough to point to the house currently flanked by black, nondescript FBI sedans with dark tinted windows and odd antenna protruding from their roofs.  That pretty much ends the conversation, but he continues to stand close uncomfortably close to me, as an older man conspicuously points his smart phone at reporters, shooting video, to let us know he is watching or to give us a taste of our own medicine I suppose.

This neighborhood is ferociously supportive of John Swallow. You might even say rabidly so. Rabid devotion is the only way to explain, how usually mild moms in Toyota Corrolas, can find themselves speeding past you and screaming, "Leave him alone you vultures!!"

Later I hear that a fellow reporter at the Shurtleff home has been harassed and threatened by neighbors there.  someone, she says, even threw a baseball at her during her live report.

As we pack up for the night, the neighbor who choreographed the strategically timed sprinkler assault is on his knees in a puddle of water in front of a fractured, spewing sprinkler head.  "Dad!" his young son shouts, as the man attempts to avoid the spewing plastic valve, "The water is broken!" the man, with both hands around the fountain, says, "It was worth it," as water fills the pockets of his snugly fitting shorts.

For God's sake, Tell Me You're Kidding.

He shuffles incessantly through his series of grotesque green, and red protest signs, eyes darting robotically from left to right as his young son, stands obediently in the Utah sun, squinting disinterested as the wind rocks and whips the boys cardboard placard about, jerking his tiny little arms back and forth.  

I met the man on the left

"Pray for More Dead Soldiers," reads one sign, "America Is Doomed," says another, and then of course there is the most infamous, and most recognizable placard, "God Hates Fags."  These two people are from the clownish freak show known as the Westboro Baptist Church, and they are right here in Utah, protesting the funeral of a dead soldier.

It was probably 2001 or 2002, when I met the two members of this dirty little tribe.  I was covering the funeral of a fallen Utah serviceman when I came across the heavyset man and his child, pulling out their garish placards from the back of a late model GMC Pacer.  I approached him with a long list of what I thought were intelligent questions that I was certain would make him recognize  how deplorable his actions were, but I soon learned, no minds would be changed today.  He had heard it all before, the questions, the insults, the attempts at reason, and his answers, after years of verbal evolution, were already carved in stone.  "Dueteronomy" followed by a series of numbers was an answer to one question, "Luke" and more numbers is the response to another. His answers are efficient, and practiced, rattled off with stale passion.  He never looks or really engages with me.  In his mind, it seemed to me, my questions are just background noise, to the louder, hideous hiss of rage and anger clanging loudly in his ears.  

After the funeral procession passes him by, he doesn't linger to savior his handy work, rather he and his son, quickly load up the Pacer, and skid off in their clown car of blackness, I assume in an effort to catch a funeral in Idaho or Colorado.

Pastor Fred Phelps

I thought about the mechanical encounter yesterday as news of the death of WBC pastor Fred Phelps broke.  Phelps, who ironically was baptized at the First Baptist Church In Vernal, Utah in 1947, founded the hate church in 1955. You've likely heard of this group.  The tiny biblical circus, has, 40 or so disciples, mostly blood member of the Phelps family.  They travel the country protesting funerals, claiming that the US is defending the gay lifestyle, and that God, in turn, is killing solders because of it, or something like that.

Calling WBC a fringe church is frankly an insult to good old fashion fringe churches, and no one really takes them seriously, but what is remarkable about Westboro is the grotesque brilliance of it's marketing.  

Of course we all know about their stunning signs and their protests, but the church, if you can call it that, also has a sophisticated multimedia and social media strategy that would make Procter and Gamble or Coca-Cola, stand up and take notice. If the church members attended a marketing seminar in Vegas and didn't mention who they were, only proclaiming their public relations success, "We've been featured in Time Magazine, Dateline, every local television station in the country, and on Al Jazeera," PR firms would be clamoring to hire them.  

The freak show

Westboro Baptist Church even has it's own Twitter feed that is very active.  In their banner picture, they feature their protestors hoisting those iconic signs,the band of misfits may be filled with insane hate, but at least they understand their brand. If you can believe it the church has more than 18,000 followers on twitter, undoubtedly those people are simply into shock porn, excited to check out Westboro's wacked out morning messages, so the indignant can rage and rail at the churches outlandish claims, as they gulp their morning coffee, and mutter with anger, and say "how could they?"

I found it odd, that this arrogant little tribe of inbreeds, so good at NOT listening to anyone, actually follows 20 different accounts, but when I look a bit deeper, I realized @WBCSays only followed other WBC accounts, all variations of the same demented theme, one account is called @GodHatesTheMedia etc.  

Today WBC posted a video spewing about the death of Pastor Phelps, a yawner of a diatribe filled with selected, and misinterpreted bible verses, vitriol and typical media bashing.  It wasn't the message, but the quality of the video production, granted low-budget, that struck me.  The Phelps who was talking in the video, was well lit and he was equiped with a microphone, so the sound quality was good and clean.  Something you don't often see with low-end productions like these. 

Also this group of hate mongers, isn't isolated from the material world.  They recently recorded a parody, of the popular song "Royals" by Lorde,  changing the words to" " Mockers will be screeching, it ain't fair, we'll be caught up with him in the air."  If this was featured in a movie poking fun at religious extremism, it would be a brilliant bit of send up, perfect comedy, in every way. 

I've always thought that Westboro's message was too ridiculous to believe.  So ridiculous in fact I wouldn't be surprised that if one day, the members of Westboro call a press conference and announce, "surprise!  It's all a joke!" and tell the world that WBC is actually a live art piece acted out by a troupe of SOHO performance artists testing us all to see if they could infiltrate the media with an outlandish and unbelievable messages.  "We did it!" they would exclaim, "We fooled you!" and then they'd return to their lofts in New York and drink Cosmopolitans, and would explain their groundbreaking experimental art to Charlie Rose against a black background.  

It hasn't happened...yet, but I'm hoping that this silliness is all an act, and that someday I'll see that heavyset man and his son, standing at that press conference.

    

  

Questions, Questions, Questions.

"What's the news doing here?"  Asks a slightly curved older man, as the phlegm rattles deep in his chest and he begins to cough a wet, violent hack.  "Oh," I say, a bit rushed, "just got some questions for someone in here."  "Well," he clears his throat as he climbs off of his well-worn purple bike, "someone's always got questions for folks in here," he drags his green, fatigue colored sleeve across his nose, and gathers up his plastic grocery bags, weary of more questions about the place he calls home.

Park Place Apartment 

People are asked a lot of questions at the Park Place Apartments at 350 East 700 South in Salt Lake City.  Police, and by default, the media, find themselves here regularly.

Over my 15 year in Utah, I've steadied  myself and entered the grey brick structure perhaps, 10 times.  The first time being the most memorable, when a man woke up one morning, snatched up a decorative sword, and began swinging it at people in his apartment.  The violence spilled into the street as the man, latched onto that blade, began chasing people around the neighborhood.

Kilmainham Jail

There are countless cases similar to that one, and it has cast a ghost of sadness that permeates and haunts this place.  You can see it in the tired faces and suspicious body language of the people who live here.  They are weary.  Most are simply trying to survive, and this campus of apartments reminds me of the now shuttered, Kilmainham Jail in Dublin.  My wife Amanda and I spent a couple a weeks there last year, and we toured the place.  Kilmainham, is a notorious "gaol", where Irish freedom fighters, were jailed, and executed on a regular basis.  Prison guards, would house men and children together inside the sickly, unheated halls of the wretched jail.  The corridors where long, and the cells small.

Kilmainham Jail

The halls of the Park Place are equally as long, and illuminated by cheap, incandescent bulbs that give the place an otherworldly glow.  As I roamed the long, lonely halls, lighted in puke green, the hue reminds me of a a woman on a flight I once took to my hometown of Dallas. Our plane was forging it's way into destabilizing turbulence.  As the jet jostled and rocked, I glanced over to the nice little lady next to me.  Her face was putrid with fear and nausea.

I'm here today because a man nicknamed "Ramen Noodle," used to date a woman who lives at the Park Place. She filed for a protective order against Noodle, back in 2009.  I was hoping she might be able to shed some light on the alleged crime spree for which Noodle had been recently arrested.

Park Place Apartments

The door opens slowly, and the small woman on the other side, only allows the flimsy door to reveal a sliver of her face.  "Hi, I'm Chris Jones, from 2News," she is unimpressed as she scans my clothing from top to bottom she's likely suspicious of my tie, and perhaps searching for a badge, or maybe a gun.  She takes a drag from her cigarette, "and?" she responds, as smoke unfolds out of her small apartment.  "I'm looking for Antoinette," I say as I hear the blast of children unleashing holy-hell in an apartment around the bend of the hall. "I told you to be quiet!" bellows the deep howl of a man who has had enough.

The woman, stares into my eyes, "I don't know."  She says, again pulling from her cigarette.  "Does she live here?" I ask.  "Why?" She retorts after a few seconds, and I explain the reason for my visit. "She's not here."  She deadpans.  "Is she working?"  I ask.  "I don't know."  She responds.  "She's at work?" I press, "yeah," the door begins to squeeze closed, "Where does she work?" I say realizing I might be wasting her and my time.  "I don't know."  

Eventually I earn a modicum of her trust and she agrees to calls Antoinette, who explains she stopped seeing Noodle because he roughed her up, and because he "got into drugs and pills," she continues, "he's always in jail," and she says, anticipating my next words, "I don't want to be on TV answering questions."

Eventually I make my way down the sad hall passed an old tube TV resting on the tile outside one of the apartments, to the news truck.  Outside I meet a man pushing a rattling grocery cart filled with cans, he asks "what's the news doing here?"  to which I say, "just asking some questions," As the man shuffles off, pressing his cart forward likely tired of getting questions and little else from people like me, curtly adds, to no one in particular "they've always got questions for people here."

 

Motel Hell

"If you don't move from this sidewalk, I will arrest you."  It was the sharp end to a surprisingly short and terse exchange with a Cocnino's Sheriff's Deputy.  The Officer had only engaged me for a matter of minutes, but it was enough time for him to threaten to put me and my photographer behind bars for standing on the sidewalk near the Coconino Municipal building.

Scott Curley

It was understandably a difficult evening for everyone in law enforcement, particularly in the southern part of Utah and the northern half of Arizona.  A man, Scott Curley, was on the run in the shrubby red rocks of Fredonia, Arizona in Coconino County.   One of their own, Kane County Utah Deputy Brian Harris had been shot and killed by Curley earlier that day.  Curley, after an afternoon crime spree, shot and killed Harris as the deputy tracked Curley into the rough terrain. The wanted man lay in wait under a Rocky Mountain Juniper and ambushed Harris as he trudged up over a rise.  When I encountered the deputy, Harris's widow was grieving, Curley was still on the run, and the Coconino Sheriff's building was filled with deputies, EMT's and fire fighters who were milling about, trying to find fellowship at Fredonia's multi-purpose maintenance building.

It was late, sometime after 11 when photographer Matt Michela and I rolled into Fredonia.  We had just checked into the Grand Canyon Motel.  A dusty brown plot of worn cottages off of highway 89.  The motel, wasn't for short vacation stops, it was an extended stay place that had been taken over by weary, dew rag wearing oil workers doing itinerant, back-breaking work in the surrounding oil fields.  The worn-out men in their early 40's look like they are in their late 60's and stand, or more likely slump on the broken wooden porches of their worn-out cottages, pull drags from cigarettes held by their oil pocked hands, and quietly morn the lonely life they live.   Our assignment desk had called ahead to make reservation, which, I am told surprised the motel's owners, since there hadn't been a reservation made at the faded pit stop in years.

Courtesy Matt Michela

As we park our news vehicle, the shine of the headlights pulsate off of the eyes of about a dozen cats, who slink, sleep and casually lick their paws as we unload our equipment after a long day on the road.  As I fumble for my room key, I notice the name of the motel, accompanied by the address: PO Box 456, Predonia, Az.  Of course being in "Fredonia," I wondered if the owners, never saw the typo, or just didn't care.

As I enter my wood paneled room, the thick stink of cat urine overpowers the shabby space.  As I drop my bags, I noticed the stench is not leaving, so I prop open my door, which is a reminder to about 3 cats that they enjoy peeing inside, and they marched in, giving me a look as if to say, "What, exactly, are you doing in our litter box?"

Matt and I decided to forgo more time inhaling cat urine and jumped in our news vehicle to scope out the town in which we will live for the next several days.

As we cruise down the main portion of town, a woman, suggests that an employee at the gas station across from the municipal building might be able to help us.  I speak with the young woman, who nervously admits she is friends with Curley, and knows he's been having some mental health issues lately, she agrees to speak to us, but only after she is off the clock, in about 15 minutes. Matt and I set up across the street to wait.

Kane Co. Deputy Brian Harris

That's when we met the deputy.  He approaches us quickly, as if he is marching up on a band of protesters, cloaked in masks, hoodies, and armed with rocks.  He downshifts into "There's nothing to see here" mode. "Ok fellas, the press briefing is tomorrow morning, so head on back to your room," he announces, pointing with his right hand in the direction he supposes is the location of our hotel, and, oddly, begins waving us on with his left, as if he is directing traffic.  "Ok," I respond pleasantly, "we look forward to that," and I continue standing on the sidewalk, turning from the deputy to the Sinclair gas station across the street.   After a brief pause, and no movement from us, the officer, again stretches his finger northbound, "well, there is nothing to get right now, and you are making the officers at the municipal building uncomfortable, so you need to get going." he says, this time more firmly than before.  Not interested in spending more time inhaling ammonia than I have to, I stay put, "Well, I understand, but we have no intention of bothering any officers right now, and we still have a little work to do, so we'll be headed back soon," I say, raising my level of annoyance to meet his, as I glance through the grimy gas station window pane at the woman who has agreed to talk to us.  She notices the officer  standing next to me, and I sense that she might back out of our interview, if she believes the police are involved.

The deputy, runs his tongue, from left to right, across the front of his bottom teeth, and begins speaking tersely into his shoulder mounted walkie-talkie.  "You are blocking our vehicles from coming and going!" he boils at me.  I sigh, and look up, and am, for a brief moment, distracted by a sky carpeted with a billion sparkling stars, but return my eyes to the deputy, "Look, you know as well as I do, that this is a public sidewalk, and we have every right to be here!"  I say, raising my voice and squinting as the two of us continue our standoff.  "Not if you are interfering with the easy transport of emergency vehicles!" his voice is, almost on cue, interrupted by the deep, distant howl of a prairie wolf, loud and pronounced, as I look from left to right, at a vacant, dust covered highway sleeping quietly under the bright shine of the moon.  Here comes my first mistake. Sarcasm, which I've learned over the years, is always my first mistake, "Yes, I can see, it looks like Los Angeles at rush hour." I laugh as I give a sideways glance at the woman across the street who is locking the doors to the convenience store and looks nervously over her shoulder, cloaked harshly under the sickly hue of buzzing neon lights.  "We are expecting more vehicles anytime now!"  He is fuming at this point, "and if you stand here, you're camera will distract the officers driving."  I press my chin towards my chest, and look at him in amazement, "Seriously.  You just said that?"

Grand Canyon Motel

"If you don't move from the sidewalk, I will arrest you!" the lawman says chest heaving, "Ok, look," I try, a few seconds too late, to diffuse the situation, "You see that woman over there?" I gesture to the nervous girl, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets, moths dancing and crashing into the harsh lights illuminating the gas pumps by which she stands. "We are tying to talk to her, and if you leave us alone, we will do just that and go."  The angry deputy steals a quick glance, and begins to breath normally, "Go!" he points at the girl, "Then go to your motel!"  As we gather up our gear and cross the street under the deputy's watchful eye, I say, again sarcastically, and again, mistakenly, "We'll try not to get hit by the SWAT team rumbling through town!"  Matt's eyes widen, and so do mine, but as we approach the girl, he stomps away towards the municipal building without arresting anyone.

That night as I settle in, laying, sleepless on top of the scratchy, army grade blankets, I breath in the nauseating smell of cat waste, and listen to felines howl and rustle outside.  I blink and watch the ancient digital clock tick off time, from 3:32 to 3:33, and as I spot a small roach dance across the ceiling, I think, "perhaps a night in jail wouldn't have been so bad."

The Sound Of Silence

"So, what do you think?"  I say after a prolonged explanation, to which I hear...Nothing, silence, static.  then after the most pregnant of pregnant pauses, so pregnant in fact, that you might describe it as, "with twins," pregnant, I pull my cell phone away from my ear, and squint questioningly into the screen, and return it, as I whisper, "hello?  "Oh yeees!" comes the plucky, perky response from Carrie Jenkins, the long time head of public relations for Brigham Young University.

Carrie Jenkins, BYU PR

I just asked Carrie to answer some questions about Kathyrn Skaggs,  a speaker scheduled to talk at The BYU Women's Conference.

Skaggs is the author of the wildly popular, and conversely, wildly panned blog, "A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman."  Skaggs recently penned a scorcher of a post, that claims, in no uncertain terms, that the Disney animated movie, "Frozen." is a shrill anthem shoving the gay agenda down the throats of American children.  She says the title song of the movie, "Let it go," is pretty gay.  Her controversial blog post has received praise in some circles, and ridicule in many others.  Kendall Wilcox, a documentary film maker and founder of the group, "Mormon's Building Bridges," wonders if Skaggs is the best person to speak at the conference given her controversial views on gays, and same-sex marriage, so I decided to ask Jenkins about it.

Kathyrn Skaggs, Blogger

"Weeell" says Jenkins, who has an amusing way of turning truncated words into rubber bands, "I juuuuuust think you should chaaaaat with her," she responds elastically.  "Yes, but she is speaking at your event." I suggest,  "Would you like to talk about why she was invited?" I say.  Again, I'm greeted with the uncomfortably loud echo of silence.  This time I'm determined to wait her out.  Which I do, for an agonizing 30 seconds, but, like most people ensconced in uncomfortable silence, I break and blurt, "What do you think?!"  "Oooooh," says Jenkins, "I just thiiiiiink you should taaaaaalk to her!"  She chimes happily into her landline.

Jenkins, is likely a hero in the public relations world.  She is supremely disciplined, she is never rattled no matter the controversy, and she is always, without exception, smiling.

Over the past 15 years, I've sat in her office on numerous occasions and watched as she smiles gently into the lens and masterfully and methodically chants hypnotically, her message for the camera.

I remember many years ago, asking her about an issue related to gay rights on BYU's campus.

"Weeeeeell, we certainly do respect aaaaaall students on campus, but that has aaaaaaalways been our policy," she repeated for the third time, with the corners of her mouth turned up gently towards the sky, and her eyes happily agreeing with her lips.

It would be the sentence she would parrot, 5 more times throughout our videotaped conversation.  No matter what the question might be, she returns eagerly to that singular, simple sentence, never once getting upset with the different iterations of essentially the same question I would pose.  

I could have asked: "Is the sky blue?"  and the response would have likely been: "Weeeeeeell, we certainly do respect aaaaaaall students buuuuuut,..."

Jenkins knows, the best way to avoid controversy is to remain silent, or if the controversy already has legs, to speak, but to stick to your guns.  She likely learned years ago, that if you try to give a fresh answer to the same question, you might say something you regret.  She also knows getting mad is a sure way to have a grimace, or snappy answer, end up edited into a finished piece, so that smile, that omnipresent smile, never fades. 

To her credit, Jenkins will, on many occasions, graciously invite you to her office on the BYU Campus to recite her formulaic answer to you.  That's pretty good, when you consider what her counterparts at many Federal agencies will do.  The FBI and Transportation Safety Administration for example,  appear to employ public information officers, who I believe are officers who neither talk to the public or provide any information.

In fact the spokesperson for the FBI doesn't even have a phone number to give the media.  Reporters are required to Email if they have questions.  Last week while acting on a tip about a case being worked on by the Salt Lake City office of the FBI, I wrote several Emails to the spokesperson, but as far as I can tell, she never even opened them.  

I have images in my mind of an office in the Salt Lake City FBI building marked PR, with the lights out, and cobwebs draped across a bank of dusty blinking and, buzzing, 50's style telephones.

The Email policy appears to have been enacted while the office was in the hands of a former reporter.   Reporters-turned-PR people are traditionally, in my opinion, the most difficult PR people with whom to work.

I'll never forget a former colleague of mine.  He was one of the toughest reporters in the business, he would seldom allow a PR "flack" to get away without answering a question.  He was particularly prickly when a public relations officer would chastise him for doing a story the PR guy didn't' like, "That's not a story," the media handler would say, to which my friend would always respond, "You don't get to name the stories."  Many years later, my friend went to work for a Utah politician.   Literally days after taking the job, I remember him bleating into his phone, as I discussed a controversial issue involving his boss, he said, without an ounce of irony, "that's not a story!" 

I was stunned into silence when he blurted that out, and I've learned over the years that Silence is something, you will often get from the office of public relations.   

Hard Candy and Puppies

"Hard Candy?" came the high pitched offer from Curtis Mullins Sr. who poked me with his elbow and held open his hand with 3 pieces of butterscotch placed carefully in his open palm.  I looked at the portly Southern gentleman in his boxy black suit with bewilderment.  "Hard candy?"  He insisted his already comically high voice climbing a few octave higher, as he thrust the cellophane wrapped treats into my fist.  A funeral seemed like a strange place to get offers of candy from strangers, but after this emotional, long, and difficult week, Curtis, and the small, peculiar and isolated Virginia town of Grundy seemed in a way, like home.

The Mullins, Junior back left

Ethan Stacy

More than three years ago, in the soggy foothills of the South, 4 year old Ethan Stacy was buried.  Just this week, his stepfather, Nathan Sloop was sentenced to 25 to life in prison for the brutal death of his step-son.  I'll spare you the details.

Ethan's dad, Joe, is from a town near Grundy, and wanted to bring his boy home to this battered, nearly abandoned enclave.  Grundy, is a grubby coal town that has endured bad luck.  Since 1929, the burg has been afflicted with 9 major floods, that have all but killed the once proud city, turning it into a zombie town, that wanders, unaware that it is mostly dead.

In 2001, the state undertook a major relocation project, carving out a new existence on higher ground. The "new" Grundy.  Like an empty-nester who downsizes from a large 3000 square foot home into a small 2 room apartment, but refuses to get rid of any of the furniture, is crammed into 13 long acres scratched into the rocky mountains across from the unpredictable Levisa Fork River along State Route 83.

Grundy, flooded 9 times since 1929

Every morning Curtis Mullins Sr. and his extended family, who all live in a house connected to the Grundy Funeral Home, which they run, wake up, and peer across the Levisa into the hollow husk of their old life, a once bustling coal town, that is now filled with abandoned shops, homes and farms.

Curtis had a stroke a few years back, and that has made his voice a high, raspy shrill.  At first his tenor makes you chuckle a bit until you learn the circumstances.  Despite his new voice, Curtis retains his old, authentic Southern hospitality, as he invites me into his home, so his son, Curtis Mullins Jr, "who knows the computer," can burn me copies of pictures of Ethan.  "Do ya wan't some biscuits?" says Junior, a heavier, younger, carbon copy of his father, as his pleasant wife thrusts a pan  into the oven, next to a refrigerator, covered from top to bottom with pictures of grand kids, announcements from the baptist church, and fliers about dances at the high school.

"We'll we hope ya'll have a good visit here," says Junior, as he hands us a CD filled with Jpeg images, and stuffs a biscuit in my hand, "now take this," he insists, "it's chilly out there."

On the day of Ethan's funeral, the already impossible parking situation in Grundy is even more difficult as hundreds of mostly strangers and journalists make their way to the funeral home.  Old men with creased faces and hands blacked by the coal, "visit" and laugh, and tell jokes almost as weathered as their paws, "I'm so broke I can't even pay attention." quips an old vet sporting a 25 year old seersucker suit, and a baseball cap emblazoned with an insignia from the USS Saratoga.

Funeral for Ethan Stacy

I wasn't the only person to whom Senior had offered that "hard candy,"  I smiled gently listening to the eulogy for Ethan, as Mullins bounce from reporter to photographer, in town to cover the funeral, nudging each, and offering them a butterscotch.  The photojournalist from Rueters News Service, a notoriously prickly character, was noticeably annoyed by Senior as the gentle man tapped the journalist on the shoulder, "hard candy,"  Nick, frowned violently and shook his head vigorously.  Senior jabbed him again, "hard candy!" he said his tenor climbing higher, "No!" Nick seethed under his breath to the old man.  Senior jabbed the butterscotch into the photographers breast pocket with a smile, "hard candy," he mouthed triumphantly, and happily moved onto the next guest.  Nick shot an angry glance at his pocket, and a guffaw, then returned to snapping pictures.  After the funeral I noticed Nick editing his photos in his rented SUV.  He pulled a pen out of his breast pocket and with it, that little "hard candy," without noticing the irony, he popped the butterscotch into his mouth, and for a brief second, I saw the jaded journalist grin, before his perpetual scowl returned.

At the cemetery where Ethan was laid to rest, I sucked on a butterscotch as I sat in our large satellite truck waiting for the burial to begin.  With a start, a small dog, some kind of a terrier, chihuahua mix, bolted into our truck, and greeted me with tail wagging.  The pooch took a quick look around or truck then jumped out to greet others who were trudging somberly towards the burial plot.

"Who owns that dog?" I asked a Buchanan County Deputy perched near us, "I dunno," he said, petting the puppy's ears vigorously, "he's always here for some reason."

Joe Stacy at son's funeral, with the puppy in tow

I watched as Ethan's father Joe, made the long walk from his car to the final resting place of his son, that little dog sauntered up to his side, tail wagging and smiling as the broken father dragged himself. Joe glanced down for a moment at the happy doggy, and grinned, letting a  subtle laugh escape his mouth for a moment, a temporary reprieve from his darkness, before being enveloped again by the unimaginable fog of sorrow.

The next morning as I purchased a cup of coffee at a convenience story, I pulled out another butterscotch from my suit pocket, and noticed the front page of the local paper, on it a picture of Joe, surrounded by family, and to his side, that ridiculous, amazing puppy trailing along.

It has been several years, and hundreds of stories ago, since I was in Grundy, but I think about it often, and how the town was able to conjure bits of happiness out of tragedy. Happiness, like you might find in a piece of hard candy at a flood, or a puppy at a funeral.

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