Katie Beers (18 page)

When I did attend, I never had the right clothes and Marilyn and my grandmother were constantly being called in to discuss my attire. I would wear summer clothes in the frigid Long Island winters, outgrown pants and skimpy shirts that were bought from the dollar store or Cheap Johns. Once a year, Marilyn would buy me a new top at Caldor for class picture day. I would wear it over and over again and I could hear the kids at school call me behind my back “Dirty Katie” and “Cockroach Kid.”

I did have this one friend growing up: Roseanne. She lived around the corner from me in West Islip. We would ride bikes, play dolls, and
swim in her plastic above-ground pool. I had such fun with Roseanne, until Sal ruined it. Sal knew that I was friends with Roseanne, and also that he had control over me. He instructed me to bring Roseanne by his bedroom window; he wanted to show her something. I put it off as long as I could, that is, until Sal threatened to beat me and my grandmother. He picked a morning for the task. My instructions were to bring Roseanne by his window and he didn’t care how I did it; he just wanted it done. I told Roseanne that we were going to play “McDonald’s drive through” on our bikes and that Sal would be at the window to pretend to be the McDonald’s employee giving us our food. When we got to the window, Sal was there wearing a robe. I “ordered” my food and then it was Roseanne’s turn to order. Roseanne went up to the window and before she could “order” her food, Sal’s robe was on the floor and he was standing there naked, asking her if she wanted to play with him. Roseanne sped away from the window screaming and crying. Sal ordered me inside. He was furious Roseanne did not play with him, so instead, Sal raped me.

I tried to go to Roseanne’s house a few days later to play with her, but her mother came to the door and informed me that I was no longer allowed in because of the “event that occurred the other day.” Child Protective Services was at our house a few days later asking me questions. I was so scared of Sal that I lied about what had happened. I told CPS that Roseanne was the one who was lying and that something probably happened at her own home. I did not see Roseanne after that. Things for me only got worse.

There were also allegations of Sal abusing two girls for whom Aunt Linda babysat. For some reason, Sal would come along on the job, and so would I. The girls and I were playing “house” with their older brother. I was playing the role of the mother, the girls were the daughters, and the brother was the father. While we were playing, the brother and I were pretending to sleep. Sal summoned the girls to come out of the room. They went with Sal and came back a few minutes later crying hysterically. I could surmise what had happened, but asked anyway. They said that Sal touched them, and made them touch him. They also said that this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Then they reluctantly revealed Sal’s threat. If they told anyone about the “game they played,” he would hurt their parents. He didn’t have to elaborate. They knew he meant what he said.
Their brother also admitted to me that he had been physically abused by Sal and that he got the same lecture about not ever saying a word about it or else “someone would get very badly hurt.” I’m not aware of any charges ever brought against Sal for molesting these little girls. His threats apparently succeeded.

When we lost the West Islip house, Linda and Sal moved to their house in Bay Shore and Marilyn to the Mastic Beach two-car converted garage. Sal and Linda took me with them because Marilyn was still working two jobs and figured she couldn’t care for me. They took in my Grandmother Helen, too, because they needed my grandfather’s social security checks.

One day, while Linda was napping and Sal was out of the house, Marilyn came and took me away.

“Katie, you’re coming with me,” she said. “Get your stuff.”

It was right after Marilyn filed charges against Sal. She said little and started throwing my things into trash bags. There wasn’t much to get. I had no toys, just some clothes. I let Marilyn and her boyfriend Teddy in through a back basement door where my grandmother was staying. They stuffed all my things into black plastic garbage bags and threw in what little Helen had, too. Then they took me and Grandma away. I was kicking and screaming.

Linda abused me. I was thinking she is going to blame this on me. She is going to beat me the next time I see her. That’s why I was panicking. Sitting in the back seat of Teddy’s car, I stared out the window, going all the way down Sunrise Highway, crying. I’m going to get beat real bad.

Marilyn enrolled me in fourth grade in Mastic at the Tangier Smith Elementary School. I don’t remember any of my teachers, from any grade. I never asked anyone for help. I didn’t know I should have or could have. No one, in those days, discussed these things.

When I did go to school, I got a wicked case of head lice. It was so embarrassing because everyone already thought I was a dirty child—then I got lice to prove it. I was sent home for treatment—stayed home for a few days—then returned to school only to be examined by the nurse who still found my head still full of nits. After a few more days, I snuck back to school and the nurse sent me home again. That’s when my long, beautiful hair was chopped off. Marilyn took me to get it done.

“If you want to go to school, Katie, you have to get rid of that mop,” she said.

The salon was in a strip mall in Shirley, near the house in Mastic Beach. They had to use special sanitized scissors as they cut as close to my scalp as possible. I had always had long pretty hair. Now I looked in the mirror through glassy eyes and saw my nearly shaved head. My hair had been the one thing that was ever really tended to, with braids or ponytails and barrettes. All that was gone in a pile swept into a plastic dustpan.

The haircut and the repeated doses of RID didn’t even work. I still had lice. Marilyn seemed to do everything she could to kill them. She gave herself, Little John and Grandma Helen the treatment. She treated the house, the sheets and my one stuffed animal, but I still had lice.

The nurse would call the house next door, and the neighbor would come deliver the news. Grandma Helen would then walk the one mile to school, collect me in the nurse’s office and we would leave together, returning on foot to the garage apartment the four of us shared.

As she held my hand she would say, “Katie, I know you want to be in school, but we gotta have this lice taken care of.”

Helen was soft-spoken and gentle, the most special person in my life. She was the only person who ever hugged me or physically expressed love, because Marilyn just wasn’t around.

Grandma Helen and I used to walk to the grocery store, and it wasn’t close to our house. She tried to pay one time but the store clerk wouldn’t let her use a check, because the one before had bounced. When we returned home empty handed, Sal was so angry, he not only beat me, he also hit my grandmother. She was a petite woman. There wasn’t much to her. She would shake her head and say that if Grandpa Stewart were alive, things would be different. Then Sal would chime in saying it was a good thing Stewart wasn’t still living because he would hit him, too. Sal was such an angry man.

Grandma was a wonderful soul, but she was too weak to save me. Uncle Bob later told me the home he and Marilyn grew up in, Helen and Stewart’s home, was a “madhouse.” Having come from one, I can only imagine.

Helen died when I was thirteen years old. I was at summer camp in my new life. My foster parents didn’t want to call me and break the
news over the phone so they waited to have the services and funeral for when I got home. I hadn’t seen her much after the kidnapping. Marilyn, when I did see her, never wanted to go the hospital to visit her mother. When we did go, Grandma would hang out the hospital window smoking cigarettes and Marilyn would sneak smokes downstairs. Helen Beers died of lung cancer.

To Grandma’s wake, we had a police escort with silent lights as if we were something special. At the viewing, the laid-out body looked nothing like my grandmother. In life, she was thin and frail—there was nothing to her. When you pass, you retain water. She looked bloated and made up. She had never worn make up. As I looked at her in that box, I thought I never really knew this woman. I certainly never understood how a grown woman could be so helpless. But then, I don’t think about her much anymore. I have no desire to see or speak to any of them. I don’t want to hurt Marilyn, so I try, once in a while, to keep in touch.

Big John’s house was a toy store, candy store and amusement park all in one. (Suffolk County Crime Lab)

Big John’s bedroom was filled with junk food, soda and games. It’s where any kid with a sweet tooth and a video game habit would end up. (Suffolk County Crime Lab)

Big John’s bed. I knew for certain that there was something really very wrong happening to me. (Suffolk County Crime Lab)

Big John’s main house and the converted garage behind it. I was hidden in a bunker beneath the garage and had no idea police were located in the front house for surveillance. (Suffolk County Crime Lab)

Big John removed the hats and unscrewed the silver hooks on either side of the wooden shelves then slid the cabinet on wheels out into the office. I didn’t understand. (Suffolk County Crime Lab)