The Old Lady, Blind Man and the Midget

         It was cold outside. I don’t remember the specific date, it seems like it was March. I was in my patrol car, somewhere around Macomb if I remember right. I had been working for Wright County as a Deputy for only a couple of months. So far, I had responded to car wrecks, domestic violence, thefts and vandalism, but nothing was going to compare for what I was about to go to, and it wasn’t going to be the last either. I remember the dispatcher called me on my cell phone, as she did not want to give it out over the radio. It was a call I will never forget.

            “Hey Jacob, I didn’t want to tell this over scanner land, but an elderly lady just called and said there is someone hanging from a tree in her back yard.” My first thought was some kid was probably playing around in his tree house or something. That’s when it got interesting. “She also said there are several people outside of her home with guns, and she says they are trying to kill her.”

As I pulled onto the road the house sat on, I couldn’t see anyone. I had no idea where the house was exactly, so I shut down my lights and siren, and began looking at addresses. For a dirt road it was short, only about a half mile. I could see the turn at the end. There was a church on one side, with a house on the other. Neither of them were the right address. Sitting right on the corner was nothing but two old trucks and an old camper. “Must belong to the house,” I thought.

Great, a prank call. I knew it. That explained why the dispatcher called me instead of using the radio, and why she called the trooper. It seemed to be in poor taste in my opinion. I mean, after all, how many lives did I risk running hot all the way there? When you figure up I travelled about 45 miles, that’s a lot of traffic to be going around. Then I saw it. Not the mob, not the person hanging in the tree, but a small piece of wood, next to the camper that happened to have the address on it.

I parked my car directly behind the first truck in the driveway, swinging my spotlights around looking for anyone hiding in the area. My stomach began turning knots, as I knew I had to get out of my car. Somewhere out there was an entire mob, with someone hanging from a tree. I didn’t see the mob, or the tree with a person in it, but when I had shined my lights around, I did see a small shack about 100 feet from where I was parked. “Must be the place,” I thought. Although nervous, I made my way up to the shack. Not one to be jumped, I did a quick peek around all four sides. Sure enough, there was a tree behind the shack all by itself. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone hanging from it. At this point I decided to try my luck and knocked on the door. It was a heavy door. It felt like a solid slab of wood. The door was so hard it actually put a slight sting in my knuckles, not to mention I wasn’t even sure if they could have heard it inside, it felt like knocking on a brick wall. I could hear my patrol car running, but that was it. There were no sounds outside, and I certainly couldn’t hear anything coming from the house. I walked back up to my car and asked the dispatcher for the address again. I wasn’t sure I was even at the right place. A small shack, attached to the side of a small camper, with an old truck out front. There were a few windows, but it was just dark inside. The dispatcher confirmed my location so I decided to knock again. This time, I used the bottom of my flashlight. Clunk, clunk, clunk. That was a much better knock on the hard wood than my measly knuckles provided. I heard a very faint, frail whisper from inside.

“Who is it?” was all she asked.

“Deputy Kelley with the Sheriff Department.”

“Come in,” she replied as the big wooden door creaked open. I stepped inside to the small shack and shut the screen door behind me. She asked me to shut the big one, but one thing taught in the academy is never let anything get between you and your car as that is you lifeline, so I shut it somewhat and stood with my right leg firmly in place keeping it from being shut completely.

I asked her what happened and I got more than I asked for. She began telling me about some people trying to kill her so they could take her boy, and how she could hear them talking. After listening to her story for a good ten minutes, it started to become clear. She was suffering from a form of dementia. I finally just assured her I would do everything to protect her and find the ones trying to hurt her and I left.

The next night I was discussing it with the dispatcher and another deputy when I was told what was going on. As it turned out, the old lady had been calling ever since the end of December. So far the only one to go had been car 188. He filled me in on the story of her living there with another elderly gentleman who appeared to be blind, and another slightly younger elderly man who was considerably shorter. Sylvia believed the computer in the Church across the street was telling these people to kill her. The three of them became a source of humor for us for a while as she would call once every couple of months with some other strange tale of people outside. We began referring to them as “The old lady, the blind man, and the midget.”

Over the next several months I got to know the three of them, as the calls there picked up more and more. It was always the same story, but she no longer called only late at night. Eventually it became clear the two men suffered from the same delusions. It came to a point where they were calling twice or more a week, at various times throughout the day. They became a group of frustration, taking up considerable time each call, as they always had to tell the whole story. We called the department of aging, but they refused to do anything. Finally I decided I had to do more.

In one particular call, I took a good hour where I sat down with the three of them. I asked every question I could think of and got names and numbers for family members, as well as addresses. She told me she talked to each of them at least once a week. It turned out to be very saddening. I spent the afternoon tracking down every name she had given me. Her sons, her daughter, even one brother. Every name I called denied knowing her. I would get told, “I don’t know her, and how did you get my name?” When I would try to tell them, several hung up on me! There was nothing more I could do. What used to be a humorous situation, had turned into something more. We had gotten to know them, to care for them and yet we could do nothing except reassure them we would protect them.

Then one day the calls stopped. No one really noticed. We just weren’t going there anymore. After about six months it occurred to me. I did some checking and learned the lady had died about the same time the calls stopped at the age of ninety-seven. The blind man died shortly after her, he was seventy-nine. As best I could tell, her son in his late sixties was still alive, but I am unsure of where at anymore. I was never able to get them the help they needed, and now when I tell the story of the old lady, the blind man and the midget although it starts off as if I’m telling a joke, and some of the things they did were humorous, no one is ever laughing when I finish.

Untitled Comment

{ 20:17, October 22, 2008 } { Posted by Jan }

I understand why you got 100 %. Wonderful, and very sad story. Great job Jacob!