When college ended Popi asked me to come work for the family business. It wasn't my first choice, but I hadn’t lined up anything else and was facing another summer in Williamsburg alone. I decided to go home to my family. I rented a one-bedroom apartment in town and started working.

By then Don had disappeared. When he left Williamsburg in March of 1990 he went home to live with his family again and work. I’m not entirely sure how long he stayed around, but a year later he was gone and nobody knew where he was.

By the time I moved home Don and I had achieved our official one year separation so I could have proceeded with the divorce. However, when your spouse can’t be served with divorce papers, you have to publish in the newspaper. I couldn’t afford to do that. Since I had no life it was easy to let it sit on the back burner for two more years.

After a year in my apartment my financial situation became untenable and I moved back home to save up. I was working on the road in a different part of the region every day. That’s where I met M. He was one of my customers.

In the spring of 1993 I received a letter in the mail from Don. He wanted me to know he was back at his parent’s again and he wanted to talk to me. He offered reconciliation. When I got that letter I immediately hopped in my car and drove over to his parent's house. I wanted to see him to see if it was true. I also wanted to make sure he was going to be around a while. He said he was. He also told me the cops had brought him back. His parents had bailed him out of jail and he was awaiting trial for breaking and entering and stealing guns. It was all a lot for me to take in. The good news is that I was in a good place spiritually and I took the opportunity to forgive him, if only for my own mental wellbeing.

Here is a clipping from a local newspaper on April 20, 1993:


Then on April 27, 1993:


That means that Don committed his first crimes one month after we split. It didn’t take him long at all to fall in with the wrong crowd. He partnered up with someone from work for his little crime spree. Looking back I realized that he had tried to tell me something about all that in those phone calls after he left. At that point I didn’t want to hear it and wouldn’t have believed anything out of his mouth anyway.

I ran into him once that summer. Noni and I went to see “Sleepless in Seattle.” We weren’t completely happy with our seats so we got up and moved. A few minutes after we sat down Noni whispered to me…”Alex, Don is sitting behind us.” Ack! Sure enough, Don, his sister, and his mom and dad were sitting behind us. I turned around and said “Hi” to his parents and asked how they were doing. To Don I just said “Hello.” That was the most miserable-assed movie I’ve ever sat through. Can you imagine? Knowing that he was right behind me? Ugh.

Soon after I saw Don I went to work on getting my divorce. Since I could now have him served I was able to do a no-contest divorce quickly. I think the whole thing cost me $60. Don didn’t show up to the hearing and I didn’t want him to. As of July 22, 1993 I was a free woman. M and I started dating on September 1, 1993.

Sometime along the way I received a phone call from the VA Department of Taxation. They were questioning the taxes I filed in 1991 or 1992. I wasn’t the only person who had listed Don as a spouse on their state taxes that year. I don’t even know what that was all about. I told them I had the divorce papers to prove we were still married then and the person on the phone chose not to pursue it.

In June of 1994 I got married to M. I went on with my life, having chosen a worthy partner this time. The only thing that ever bugged me was that when I was in town to see Noni and Popi I’d worry that I might bump into Don. I had no idea what he was up to. For years I dealt with this low-key dread.

In August of 2001 I received a phone call at work. It was Noni. She wasn’t sure how to break it to me because she wasn’t sure how I’d react, but Don was dead. What? Then she told me the details. You can read them here:


She also told me that she had some inside knowledge from the jail. He was brought in on charges of receiving stolen property. The arresting officer mentioned that his arrest would probably lead to another three breaking and entering charges. They thought what the arresting officer said might have triggered his suicide.

From that article I gathered that at some point he had taken off to Texas and was wanted for crimes there. Leaving the state of Virginia probably violated his probation from the 1990 charges. Why he came home again I will never understand. He was actually living with his parents and working a job in town when they arrested him.

That was that. His death liberated me and saddened me at the same time. What a waste.

Back when we split I told people that I figured that Don would end up in jail or dead before long. I just didn’t imagine it would be both. It seemed he went through his life never being forced to face the consequences of his actions. He’d create this swath of destruction and then move on and leave others to pick up the pieces. When he was arrested in 2001 I think it all caught up with him. He knew he was going to do hard time and he couldn’t face it.

Tomorrow I’ll share a few additional thought on the whole episode…

Labels: college years