A Letter to My Friend - Ex-Pastor, Ex-Mentor, and Murderer.

James and Tanya,

I've been thinking about writing for a while. I have no idea what I'll do with this letter. I haven't planned any of it. It's just a stream of consciousness to work through my feelings and to share them with the idea of you. Just like I have over and over these past few years, in my head at work, at home in tears over a six-pack, whatever.

I'll start with your confession. I had just returned to the internet after a month-long hiatus as I crammed for the GRE. I had literally been talking about you and the whole situation with a friend two weeks prior, drunkenly crying about how I believed I would never get the closure I needed from the situation. I didn't believe you would ever confess. The problem was, by that point I firmly believed I knew you did it. I knew you killed Marie. The first I'd heard of it was when I was home from college at Christmas break. The church had a Christmas pageant that was super epic and funny, with Christian/Christmas spoofs on all kinds of popular rock music. It was a riot.

It was also two months after Marie disappeared. I guess it was that summer, Tanya, when you told me that you were having a baby from a surrogate. Your telling of it was a bit odd - you overshared a bit, but I didn't think much of it. I was confused why you didn't tell anyone/the church until the baby was almost born that you were having a baby. It didn't make sense to me to keep that excitement silent. But I figured it was your business and gave you the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, by that Christmas, Sweet Grace Rain was Baby Jesus in the pageant. Marie was gone. I hadn't heard much of it. But I went to Starbucks with a friend, as I always did with my ol' youth group pals. And that's when they told me the theories. Theories, James, about you wearing two weddings rings. I dismissed it, but in the back of my mind paused to question if it was possible. Then Marie's disappearance, and the theory that you killed her. I think I laughed out loud. There was No. Way.

I don't know whether it was months or just days later that my mom told me that she'd heard the foul play theory from one of her own friends, one who was not even part of the church and didn't know you. That kinda took me outside of myself for a minute. Maybe the story had more traction because people outside the community also put stock into it. Or... maybe they only could believe it because they didn't know you and couldn't possibly know that you were incapable of killing someone. Yes! I thought, Of course that's it.

And I went along merrily, not believing you were capable of it. I was still disturbed by the story, but I felt personally wounded that people doubted you. The way your whole congregation instantly distrusted you hurt me deeply. You had built this congregation from nothing. And they turned their backs on you. You helped them through so much and they instantly called you murderers, polygamists, and liars. Charlatans and cheaters. James and Tanya: Narcissistic and domineering, respectively.

I was disgusted by the whole show. But the years passed. And Marie never turned up. I closely followed her Missing Person's page on facebook, where I was exposed to a lot of things I'd never heard. Things I never would hear from you. And once again, two camps formed. James, I'm sure you're familiar with the two camps. I'll come back to that later.

It was always confusing to see which church folk believed you and which turned against you. Who thought you were guilty and who thought you were innocent. I guess before then I thought the claim of murder was a conspiracist fringe sort of belief.

Then there was the facebook page. And it became so real. I saw more of the accusations, more of the evidence. Eventually Marie's family took the page down because the police told them they were releasing too many details from the case that could compromise the case and the potential jury if an arrest was ever made.

By that point, I was thoroughly confused.

You'd already moved to Arizona. I no longer believed that Marie was a surrogate. By that point, I believed that you had an affair that led to a baby, and that the surrogacy story was to cover it up. I started wondering about murder and believing it was possible. I felt guilty for doubting you. I felt like Judas. I felt like I betrayed you by even considering that was possible. It felt sinful to even wonder. So I was on the fence for a few years, straddling both sides. To those who professed your guilt and to those who professed your innocence, I was Devil's Advocate. Honestly, I wasn't "in conversation" with anyone about it. I say that, but really, all of that occurred in my own mind.

I didn't have anyone to talk to about it with. It was the biggest struggle in my life for a while and I had no outlet. I was Devil's Advocate for my own self. Like the ball of Squash being thrown at the same fucking wall, never getting anywhere. I was jostled, banged up, and disoriented and never came out for "winning" on either side because there was still a wall. You both claimed innocence to all of it. I felt crazy for thinking you were guilty. I felt crazy for thinking you were innocent. I wanted to not need answers, but I felt at unrest without them. This unrest only grew with the years.

Then: Cold Justice. I bet it felt pretty shitty to be called out on national television. I bet it felt humiliating to have your dirty laundry aired to the world. It felt pretty humiliating to me too. By that point I'd already believed it all: polygamy, murder. I believed it. My only unrest by that point came from not hearing a goddamn bit of fucking truth from your mouths. Not about any of it. Not even the polygamy. I don't give a shit what you believe about polygamy or polyamory or whatever. But don't fucking lie about it.


What was humiliating for me about Cold Justice was not "discovering shocking new information". It was receiving confirmation. James, all those texts you sent Marie while in church. Wow. Sure, we were never meant to see that. But it was humiliating seeing that and thinking, "Damn, I'm glad I kinda already knew this, but I can't believe I defended James and Tanya for so long in this. I can't believe they lied about this and I bought it for years."


It was humiliating to me to see members from my church giving testimony because they knew about it. It was humiliating to see them being questioned, their faces blurred, and me hearing their voices and seeing their stances and knowing exactly who was fucking talking. It was embarrassing feeling like they were all in on something and that everyone kept everyone in the dark. It was all a lie. A sham. And all these people knew something. And I struggled with it silently, in isolation for years. Finally I felt less alone.

I felt relief watching the show. Ok. Now we're getting some truth. Too bad I couldn't get it from my pastors/mentors/friends. Too bad I couldn't hear any of it from you. Just two months before you killed Marie, I sent you both a message on facebook. Do you remember what it said?

Among other things:
"[You] have been so faithful as mentors and as friends"
"Thank you for being honest, real people"
"Thank you for taking me seriously enough to share with me even the most controversial of your beliefs!"
"I love and appreciate you both."

I bet you felt so guilty. I didn't know your most controversial beliefs. I knew about your Christian universalism. I didn't know about the polygamy. Because you weren't "honest" or "real". Did you feel like frauds? Because you damn sure looked like it. You told me that you felt you could be more honest with me than most people in the church. And you weren't. You shared with me things that you didn't share with the congregation. But just enough to be "safe".

Anyway. Cold Justice reopened that itch. Like when you mindlessly scratch a mosquito bite, and it swells massively in response and itches like hell. I'd been through stages of obsession about the theories about Marie's disappearance in the past. But nothing like when you were on national television.

I was so conflicted. I felt so hurt. I still thought there was a shadow of a chance you didn't kill her. I still hoped that maybe she would show up somehow. But I didn't think she would. Yet I kept hitting that wall of your proclaimed innocence. Even after you were arrested. Which I found out at work, by the way. I saw you in cuffs with that look of resignation on your face. I burst into tears, went out to my car and cried until my face was numb from hyperventilation. Then I got my shit back together, put some cold cloths on my eyes to cover the redness. And I went back to work to finish my day. I can't tell you how many times I cried at work thinking about the case. And this was just the beginning of the next stage.

I obsessed. I watched every youtube video I could. I googled your names. I found a lot of stuff. I remembered a lot of details. I found the Martin Zender conference you both went to. I saw you had a group of "followers" on the Martin Zender facebook group. You basically have groupies, by the way, who are condemning other believers for feeling hurt and pain.

Fuck them. And fuck you if you taught them that grace means you can't feel. I remember your teaching of grace. James, you didn't make followers of Jesus. You made followers of you. And they will crucify themselves while condemning those who dare to express anger, hurt, or a sense of betrayal.

Like everything else, as I discovered on my google searches, you were a polarizing unit. I googled you and I first found your preaching website.

You know, the one you started after you were kicked out of your church for polygamy. The one you started after you killed Marie. The one where you preached grace because you needed to believe that God could forgive someone who committed vile acts. Or maybe the one where you needed to believe that somewhere, somehow you still had a following. I'm confused by your motivation. And, you did still have a following, by the way.

Two other search results popped up. A blog called "What Is James Flanders Teaching", and an equal and opposite blog called "James Flanders Is A Heretic". Polarizing.

After Cold Justice, two fundraisers popped up. One from Marie's family, wherein they were seeking funds to afford lawyers that would allow custody to Marie's family of Marie's baby, who was still in your care. Simultaneously, another fundraiser cropped up to pay for your legal fees, James. And oh boy, did this one sing your praises. If you didn't commit the murder, I still would have been peeved. This one made you out to be a pure victim and did not say a damn thing about the polygamy, which was now a confirmed public fact. Actually, it made you out to be a victim of legal rigamarole, and all it said of Marie was that she was essentially some poor, troubled woman that you and Tanya were trying to "help". Seriously? The polygamy was confirmed and you both *allowed* this person to frame it in this way? Even if you wanted to cover the murder, you could have been a little more human about Marie and how she was cast in that. And how you were. You could have covered for the murder and still been a bit *more* honest, but no one would give. Maybe you just got off on having followers. Sure seemed like. And trust me, I saw the facebook posts - they got off on *being* your followers.

At your sentencing, James, one of them said something about you being a "celebrity preacher". No one believes it. You had your sermons streamed on a crappy local TV program, which is how I found you and why I started going to your church. You don't think you're a celebrity, right? I hope you are shocked by his phrasing. But I swear to you, that is how your "followers" see you. To them you are a Unicorn, glitter and all. They've never seen someone so Christlike. And they needed to believe someone could be so full of grace. That's why they ran to your support. A lot of us love you. I still do. But it wasn't love for you that contributed to this "celebrity preacher" fandom following that you acquired. It was love for the image you created for them. Tanya, that image is why you felt you couldn't share your life with the congregation openly as you said you did with me. That image is why you lied. They said they needed it. You thought they needed it. And you all worked together to make sure that Golden Calf image was there, because if it wasn't, then what? And now we are all being forced to drink that molten gold. How fucking poetic.

While googling, I found all sorts of stuff. I forgot about all your previous enterprising ventures, James. All the silver-selling, weapon-selling (knives, wasn't it?), article selling, exercise DVD-selling (which I bought from some random ebayer who was selling it), musical album selling... You've always peddled your stuff. After seeing all of it, it was hard not to see your website as a self-aggrandizing site to peddle more of your stuff. Yet I related. I always have projects going which could be seen as self-aggrandizing: a board game, an art exhibit, a book, a CD... Ok. Maybe we aren't that different. It scared me. I wanted so badly to call you a narcissist. And trust me, I could have made a solid case for it and had all my friends thinking you were. But I couldn't. Maybe you were a lot like me. Maybe I was a lot like you. Maybe we were a lot human. Or maybe you are a narcissist?

But. You killed someone. So you had to be less, right? There had to be something that made you different from me. There had to be. And I searched for it.

And still there was no proof you killed Marie.

So I obsessed more.

I found your daughter's arrest history. I found your legal run-ins. I posted about the case and Cold Justice to various groups and I found someone who was a part of your polygamist retreat group. Turns out that even the group where you were honest about that part of your life felt that something was off. Marie was unhappy. You seemed to have a temper and control issues. You were almost reported to the police. This whole thing was almost prevented. I hope you wish it was. I wonder if the person I spoke with wishes that they did report you to the police. Yet their relationship with their partners prevented them from doing so.

I researched the group you were all a part of. I read the articles about why deception about polygamy is justified in the eyes of God. I read about how to live a double-life and why it's ok. I read a bunch of shit. It's funny how the one quality that I think you previously identified with and the one quality I admired you for above my other pastors was your transparency. Funny how it all became opaque. And yet you retained the image of transparency? You made a CD about your bipolar disorder. You talked about depression and suicidal tendencies. All these things that are so vulnerable, you revealed. But when it came down to it, you revealed only what benefited you. I can't blame you for that, per se. We all do so. But you claimed to do more. The opacity was dishonest, but it was abhorrent the way you claimed transparency as you were opaque. Like Jim Carrey desperately trying to write, "The pen is red" when it was blue. But you succeeded. For a while.

I learned more and more about you. More than you ever would have thought. Kinda ironic that your life became more transparent when you were no longer in control of it.

I found your band, Boondock Gypsies. I watched probably all the videos. You both looked too happy for murder to be in your past. I actually almost doubted again. Then I found "Devil's Whore". On all the sites it was uploaded on. Some of your sites and pages had descriptions of the song, some had verses, some had both, some had neither. All of it taken together and with the album art... I knew it was your confession.

I am utterly baffled. I wish you could explain to me who the "Devil's Whore" was. Because it sure sounds a hell of a lot like you were tempted and drawn into a lifestyle that you don't actually believe in, but justified because you liked Marie. Then it sounds like you blamed her for your temptation, wherein you paint yourself as a "weak man" in the face of "the Sirens" almost. If I'm reading that right, How Fucking Dare You. I don't believe your confession at your sentencing. You say you are taking responsibility, but I don't think you are. More on that later.

I continued to struggle silently with this. I drank a lot. I cried a lot. I remember distinctly one night where I was drinking and lighting sparklers. I don't remember why sparklers. But I remember distinctly mourning. Mourning the situation. All of it.

I had nightmares about you. Before you confessed to killing, I'm sorry, "bear-hugging" Marie, I had a nightmare that you had me alone in a room. You knew that I knew you killed Marie. I can't remember whether I was confronting you about it or playing dumb, but whatever the case was, you knew I knew. And you told me that you couldn't wait to add my bones to your collection.

Obviously, I don't think you would kill me. But in my dream, it clearly represented my fear of how much you could let my trust fall. If I trusted you both as much as I did, and you both let me fall as much as I did for as many years as I did, why would I trust you not to kill me? You killed a part of me. A part that would have died anyway, I admit. But my trust isn't the same. And I'm just one person. I wish you could understand the reach of the pain you caused.

Finally, you confessed. And I missed it, because I was taking a damn 5-hour-long test and studying my ass off. As it turns out, all of this stuff was coming to a head. Everything with your case, and one of my friends passed away unexpectedly and grotesquely in the same month. I decided to apply for grad school because my life was happening and moving on while I was stationary in a place I hated. There was so much darkness. At my job, with my friend's death, with your case. I was tired of passivity. So I decided to apply for grad school and had less than a month's time to take the GRE.

When I came back from that hiatus, my Mom told me the news. Meanwhile, my Dad had sent me an email about it. Both of them graciously waited until my test was over, but both of them knew how monumental your confession would be for me.

Do you know what my reaction was?

Well, first I called my friend to let her know. The friend I was ranting and crying to just two weeks prior about how I thought you'd never confess and that my whole life there would always be a shadow of a doubt and that I'd always feel guilty for thinking you killed Marie... That friend. I called her and let her know.

I drove home. And then what happened? I danced in my driveway. I *danced*. It was the worst news I could possibly receive after receiving the good news that I did well on the GRE. And I danced. Relief felt so good. It felt so good. I wouldn't have that weight and cognitive dissonance on me for my whole life, I thought. It was over.

Then I went to the bar for a celebratory drink for my GRE scores, wherein I drank too much. One of the locals who I've talked to a few times talked to me about the GRE and my plans for "what's next". They asked me what I would do as a psychologist if I ended up with a "twisted fuck" in my office. You know, like someone who killed their spouse or something. I didn't spill. But I drank more before I went to my gym appointment, where I got into an argument with my trainer about religion and politics. Then I went home crying, embarrassed that I'd had a religious debate with my trainer, that I drank too much, that one of the happiest days of my successes with the GRE was tainted with your fucking bullshit and that maybe I wasn't going to be okay afterall. Maybe the relief I felt was passing and there would only be more fucking pain.

Oh, I tried to make the pain useful. After you were arrested and before your confession, I painted a painting of you. It was so physical and interactive. It was a black canvas. The first thing I did was dip my hands into red paint, and put red "bloody" handprints in the background. They are barely recognizable as handprints, unless someone is looking for them. I painted your face to the left side of the canvas, in the same style as your most recent CD cover: sunglasses and all. I painted a downward-facing dove (the emblem for the Calvary Chapel Church which you started/pastored) with a rose dripping blood in its mouth, along with three interlocked wedding rings.

I hate that painting. It's the most realistic looking face I've painted yet and I fucking hate it. But it's so visceral. It's not a "good" painting. The face has some realistic qualities, but it doesn't look real. The bird and rose and rings don't look real. The bloody handprints aren't discernible. It looks atrocious, especially to me knowing what it means. But even to an average viewer, it is visceral. And it was visceral making it too.

And just a few days ago finding the video of your sentencing. I watched your statement first, then I went backwards and watched Marie's family's statements. Then I watched your character defense. Or started to. My boyfriend got home and I stopped for the night and haven't felt emotionally up to continuing it yet.

So we're up to date in my experience of this whole thing.

Now that we're "up to date" on how it "went down" for me, can we talk about this candidly?

James and Tanya, I am utterly baffled at your dishonesty. Especially towards me. I am confused because the way you set up our friendship. I know I am young, but the way you both interacted with me and the things the three of us shared made me think that you both considered me closer than you apparently did. Source: the message I sent you two months before you killed Marie which I quoted above. You don't have access to it since you both deleted your facebooks (I would have done the same), but those are direct quotes.

I don't think this is the case, but in the back of my mind, I've wondered, "Could I have been Marie?" I remember times, James, that you made sexually slanted jokes when the three of us hung out. Not directed towards me in any way, but you made them and I was caught off guard. Were you testing the waters? Tanya, were you testing me out as a sister-wife? James, me as a second (or third) wife? Or was I just a young confidante who you both appreciated but didn't want to burden with the troubles of your life? What was I to you? Was I a friend? Was I a troubled young adult? Was I "just another church member"? Was I a potential "something more"? What was I? Do you have any idea what you were to me? I told you all the time. Probably everyone else did too.

Maybe I elevated you too highly. Maybe I was just like the rest of them, your followers, who couldn't let you be human. I don't think I was though. I think I *did* let you be human. I think that's why you trusted more in me than you did with others, even if you couldn't tell me about your alternative lifestyle. I think I elevated you enough to find it originally unthinkable that you would have killed Marie, yet not so much that I blindly sung your praises like Flanders-hymns as though you could do no wrong even after the murder.

The older I've gotten, the more I have come to realize that you can never really know another person. That terrifies me. I still feel an urge to look for what's wrong - to find that piece that makes the murder make sense. I know people that think it was all planned because you both wanted a baby. I don't believe that yet. I dunno, I didn't used to think you killed Marie either. Let's give it 5 more fucking years and see what I think about it then.

But for now, I don't think it was because of Grace. I actually have suspicions that you started to feel unrest in your lifestyle. Probably unrest due to the secrecy it involved. I'll stop here. I don't give a fuck what people do in the bedroom as long as all involved are consenting adults and that manipulation is not a tool to confuse consent. I can't attest to the last bit, but definitely all were consenting adults in your situation. And if you weren't a pastor representing the Bible and supporting the belief that most of your congregation believed you supported modern interpretations of the Bible, I wouldn't think it's anyone else's business. But you presumed to speak not just for God (I guess by a certain point your belief of God supported a polygamist view), but for the congregation.

You misrepresented the congregation you spoke to and were not up front about the dissenting views you had. If you had dissenting views and believed they were of God, you should have stood up for them. Where, precisely, in the Bible did you find support for covering up lies within the Body? There's support for lying to government, lying to non-believers, etc. I don't find support for lying within the Body. I think you went wrong there, especially when you claimed to speak for the uplifting and benefit of the Body. This is where Paul is like, "Hey, fuck you all. Bacon's awesome. Even if you won't partake, hey, some people maybe should feel that freedom." That's where you should have done the same if you believed polygamy was ok. Of course that's risky and you probably could have gone to jail. But guess what? So did Paul. And if you did, Marie would probably be alive and better off now than she was with you. So... yeah. Especially since others in your polygamist convention thought that *your particular* setup was somehow off and dangerous.

I still struggle with how to view you, James. I can't help but think you are a narcissist. Your confession didn't help you. I have never heard someone admit to killing someone in a way that made them seen tender. Who the actual fuck says that they "bear hugged" someone to death? Someone who is fucking hell-bent on looking like a good guy or a victim. You were not the victim, James. I don't think you were in a good place mentally, emotionally, spiritually. In those senses you were a victim. But you do *not* bear hug someone to death. It's not a bear hug when you have scratch marks and self-defense wounds on your body.

It was your fight or flight response kicking in and trying to stop the impending threat. I'm not fighting semantics. The prosecutor made the argument that you said "bear hug" to officials and "choke hold" to your psychologist. It doesn't matter when whatever you call what you did caused the actual death of a human being. The reason I care about the wording is because "bear hug" still implies that you consider yourself to be the good-guy/victim in this. A point supported by your song. Oh my goodness, the devil comes as an angel of light, and the devil's whore does the same, if only she didn't tempt you.

That's how I see that song. That's how I see your admission at court. You took responsibility. But I still don't know for what. Did you take responsibility for all of it? You seemed resistant at different statements that you didn't make. Does it bother you that you no longer have the ability to control the narrative? That maybe, God forbid, someone says you strangled Marie rather than bear-hugging her?

You know the real reason I am absolutely wrecked about this? Because not only did you kill someone and cover it up. You (and Tanya, I include you in this):
1) Lied to your congregation - your friends - about WHO you are and the lifestyle you support
2) Continued to lie and brought a thinking/FEELING human being into your lie who viewed you as somehow superior
3) Killed her
4) Didn't call the authorities to report accidental slaying (which is manslaughter; your non-report of it and covering it up makes it murder to me regardless of intent, which I damn well think you knew what you were doing, but adrenaline kicked in)
4) Lied to the whole church and your friends again
5) Buried her body in your goddamn shitty back-fucking-yard
6) Moved away and continued to lie
7) Evaded police
8) Continued to preach and create a new website where you'd still have a following even if you lost your church
9) Wrote a song blaming Marie for all of YOUR fucking problems
10) Had the fucking audacity to ask for affidavits and character support "in support" of your innocence
11) Allowed someone/a bunch of someones to raise legal funds to support you while LYING to them
12) Tanya, you never admitted that you knew about this and that is total bullshit
13) Still admitted guilt only after they reduced the charges to manslaughter

That's insane. Just the killing of Marie would throw me for a loop about who you are, what you believe, and what you stand for. It would make me wonder whether you were ever "mentor" worthy. it would make me wonder whether you ever really believed in or knew God. It would make me questions whether anything you said was worth believing in or could be trusted. But 2-13? To lie, cover it up, lie, cover it up... You truly only thought of yourselves.

I can't think of anything more selfish a person could do than to desire that which was "forbidden". Take it, manipulate it, cause it to beget them more joy, kill it, cover it up, and pretend it never happened. IT is a SHE. She had a life. She had a family. You had followers. You had a family. Now you have nothing. Nothing but the reality you caused by your selfishness.

More than anything, how could you let Marie's family go on questioning like that? I felt insane. I cried a lot, I drank a lot, I prayed a lot, I suffered alone a lot. And I never even MET Marie. I mourned over my ideas of both of you. I mourned for her family. I mourned for how hated you were. I mourned for the love I still feel for you. I mourned for the answers I thought I'd never have. I mourned for the answers I still will never have. I mourned for you. I mourned for Grace. I mourned that she would never know her mother. I mourned that she would only know you as her father. I mourned that she would know you as her mother, Tanya. I mourned that your other daughter didn't seem happy or that she grew up in an unhappy environment. I mourned for Grace before I knew that you killed her mother. I mourned for Grace's name - that the concept of grace is tainted for her.

Do you feel noble? Truly, you are following in the example of some of the greatest historical characters in the Bible.

Moses killed a man and covered it up. And God used him to free his Nation.
David had Bethsheba's husband killed. He was a man after God's own heart.
Abram lied about Sarai claiming she was his wife. You made the first Covenant with him.
Paul, the "worst of all sinners" is responsible for modern Christianity.

Good job. You lied about your "wife" Marie. You killed someone's prized lamb, as the prophet Nathan said. You killed Marie and covered it up. You were the "worst of all sinners" and continued to preach, because hell - Saul (I mean Paul) did it, and people were saved - Christianity was expanded!

Do you justify it? Do you see all this and think, "I am just like them. I am a man after God's own heart and I messed up"? If so, the Bible and the faith did you a disservice. And you did it a disservice.

You talked about Christian universalism. It was the last major theological shift I had before deconverting. *gasp* Which would have huge ramifications except your beliefs would still allow room for me in heaven as a non-believer. And if I were still a believer, I would still subscribe to Christian universalism and I would still want there to be a place for you at God's table. I don't believe in the afterlife, but as a non-believer, I now think that Christian universalism is perhaps the least harmful of belief styles Christians can have and I wish more had it.

Unfortunately you did it a disservice and have caused me to question the belief's benefits. As an atheist (for now), I know that morality and a lack of morality does not have to come from a belief in heaven and hell. But for those who grew up in the Church, those you preached to and led? Now they think that a belief in "heaven no matter what" leads to the most egregious sins - murder, sexual misconduct (how they view your arrangement).

I say that because I don't think you're that moved by Marie's loss of life or her family or friends' loss. I think somehow you think you get it because you were in love with her and lost her, so you are still the victim. Maybe that's my anger. Maybe it's my fear that you are so narcissistic you don't get it. And surely you can understand why your actions after her death would lead me to believe so. So if you truly aren't moved by the loss you caused to Marie's people, maybe you'll think of the loss you caused "your" people.

A lot of them turned their backs on a more inclusive gospel. A lot of them turned their backs on you. Some have probably and yet will still probably turn their backs on religion or God altogether. Most have turned their backs on you, and the few folks you have garnered through your webpage and who've defended you this whole time (who never bother mentioning Marie, by the way), are followers of you. I don't know whether they follow Jesus or not.

What you're reading here is my anger. Now follows my actual head right now, if you're ready for it.

I have no idea who you are. I never have. I never will. Humanity is frail. Any of us have the capacity to become that which we most detest in an instant. Very few people are immune to the effects of their biology and environment (heyyy, atheism has its points too). Those who are immune are very rarely immune by simple willpower or even the "power of Jesus". They are immune because of biological and environmental factors they didn't choose. I absolutely don't think that you were powerless. You had the choice and you made the wrong one. Multiple times. Consistently. And then justified it multiple times. Consistently. Dishonestly.

Do I think you "got what you deserve"? Well, no. I think you should have been tried and convicted of 2nd degree murder. I think Grace should not be raised in your home. But it's an imperfect world. I don't believe our justice system is whole. I don't believe most murderers are at risk of killing again and I don't think they should spend their days rotting in prison when most of them would never be repeat offenders and could offer society something if allowed them the chance rather than just making them leech off the system for life.

Whatever the case is, as far as our legal system is concerned, James, you should have been convicted of 2nd degree murder. Manslaughter would have been fine, a lower charge, if you had called police or an ambulance when you realized she was dead. But you prolonged the suffering of an unfathomable number of people. You may regret it, but you knew something was "off enough" about what happened to cover it up rather than to call and get help. So no, manslaughter is not enough. And Tanya, I think it's bullshit that you weren't arrested. As though you didn't know that there was a body in your fucking back yard. If you were a victim and were afraid to confess because you thought James would kill you, then you could potentially be exempt of charges. It's insane that you aren't charged with anything.

I can't believe the harm you both have done. And it's worse that you did it in God's name. I know you both had it hard. You were put in an unfair position. Pastorship will fuck you up fast. People exalt you and you become addicted to adulation. People harp about facebook and how people portray an image for "likes". Pastors portray an image for the sake of the spread of their religion, for approval, for fear, and at the end of the day for a paycheck. I understand that you couldn't be your authentic selves.

I mourn this whole thing. People are saying that you used religion to cause harm. I think your religious system used you and you sought well-being elsewhere. The cognitive dissonance was too much, things escalated, and you made a shitty decision in the heat of a moment. You were afraid. Nothing was healthy about your relationship with Marie. And this isn't about polygamy. Again, folks from your group said the same. What was off had to do with where things were with you *before* Marie.

Maybe that's why you had your "inner circle". Maybe they let you down. I seem upset that you didn't tell me about Marie. And in some ways, I am. I am pissed that you said you were honest with me when you weren't. I'm hurt that you portrayed our friendship in a particular way.

But I am so, so glad I didn't know. I can't imagine the guilt and regret I'd feel if I were one of them in the Inner Circle. Who is a perpetrator? Who is a victim? It's not so black and white.

I wish you would sincerely BOTH own what happened and take responsibility for the fullness of it. But by no stretch of the imagination do I think either of you would choose this if you grasped its fullness in that instant. It's easy to paint you as a narcissist, James. And maybe you are one. I don't know. It's just as easy to say that you have varied interests and that your family was probably struggling financially for a while so you tried entrepreneurial work. Tanya, Cold Justice chose to state that you were "domineering" and that you had control of James. But at the same time, they painted your situation with Marie as though you didn't choose it completely - that you succumbed to James' sexual desires.

We may never know. And with how much each of us lies to ourselves you may never know your own intentions fully either.

What I do know is that life isn't black and white. I don't forgive you really yet, but I know that life is confusing and that you probably don't feel like you chose to do what you did. I don't agree with your decisions and I am baffled by the mental gymnastics you performed to achieve the justification for those decisions, but I know that propensity in each and every human being.

I don't hate you. I still love you. I'm afraid of you. I don't trust you. Every human is capable of what you did. I hope I have cultivated the character that will lead me to have integrity to tell the truth when it hurts, to implicate myself when I've done something wrong, and to represent to people who I truly am. Essentially, I hope I've cultivated the character to not be like you. But I know that we all have that propensity.

The wall I keep hitting now has shifted from "they never confessed" to "so what? they confessed, but this horrible thing still happened; how is this possible?"

And it leaves me with more questions about humanity and about what the hell we are all doing and why.

I don't have the answers. I don't think your God does either. If he does, you didn't portray them well. Actually, you illustrated the profundity of our condition better than I could have. I don't know what else to say. There is no happy note. People suck. Hopefully we learn to suck less. I don't know what moving forward from this means, except accepting that no one is fully good and few folks are fully bad.

I don't know what good that does us since we can't trust one another's goodness to last. But hopefully we can love each other more fully somehow when we realize we can't know anyone fully. It's scary. Maybe it's worth the risk. Maybe it's not. Maybe life is trial and error. Maybe we'll figure it out. Maybe it's not too late for any of us. 

I don't know. I'm rambling hoping for a happy end. But there truly is just more sadness and pain to be had. The sting isn't as bad as it was before the first onset of answers. But some answers we'll never have, and that's the pain of the human condition which I am altogether more painfully aware of because of everything that has happened.

I wish healing for all involved.

I guess I'll wrap this up with three quotes that helped me in the midst of some of the worst parts of this pain.

"There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us." - Unknown (many variations attributed to many people)

"I choose to believe in the basic goodness of people. I choose to believe that not all crimes are committed by bad people, and I try to understand that some very, very good people do some very bad things." - Primal Fear (movie)

“We always look for the signs we missed when something goes wrong. We become like detectives trying to solve a murder, because maybe if we uncover the clues, it gives us some control. Sure, we can’t change what happened, but if we can string together enough clues, we can prove that whatever nightmare has befallen us, we could have stopped it, if only we had been smart enough. I suppose it’s better to believe in our own stupidity than it is to believe that all the clues in the world wouldn’t have changed a thing.” - Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep