Murder charge doesn’t fit the friend they know

‘She didn’t really have an angry side’

http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2005/09/murder_charge_d.html

A long time ago, back in 2005, a young friend of mine on LiveJournal stabbed her mother to death.

The unlikely murderer was a 16-year-old girl named Esmie Tseng. Esmie was born the same year as my son, Jon. Like many others, I never saw it coming. When it happened, I didn't want to believe it. Esmie—the one who was on LiveJournal—killed her own mother?!

As an outsider, I've been haunted by many thoughts since that time in 2005 when I heard the news. A week or so ago, I recounted the story to my husband, Paul. It's remained on my mind ever since.

The story of the honor student killing her mother made the news not only in Esmie's home state of Missouri, but across the U.S. and even overseas.

The Esmie I knew and became online friends with wrote many engaging journal entries about her thoughts, her life. She had the normal teenage angst and frustration with her family, particularly her mother. She wrote of the crushing expectations her Chinese parents had of her, and how she didn't feel like she fit in with her Asian culture. She believed she was a different person inside than who she was expected to be in everyday life — a perfect performer at everything.

It was clear, through her journal entries, that she was highly intelligent, an overachiever (and ordered to be, I might add) and creative. She wrote with a voice that was far beyond her years. Never in a million years, through her entries and our exchanges through journal comments, would I have ever believed this girl could kill her mother. As I said, I never saw it coming.

Now, six years later, I still think of Esmie and wonder what the hell happened. Mostly I think back with sadness, confusion and shock. I can't seem to resolve the stark dichotomy of the Esmie I knew and communicated with, versus the Esmie who knifed her mother to death. Those two people don't match up as one cohesive individual. At all.

What went wrong? How could this have been prevented? At what point did Esmie decide there was no other choice but to commit matricide? What was it like for her poor, terrified mother in those final moments before she died? What horrible thoughts/sights/sounds rang through her mind/soul in the violent outburst right before her death? I'm sure "How could my daughter do this?!" was one of those screaming thoughts.

Indeed, how could her daughter do it? Conflict over piano, grades and personal achievement leads to a lot of pressure, but it takes one helluva giant leap to get to a place where a person is compelled to commit murder and ruin the rest of her life. Just what went on in Esmie's mind, before, during and after? The thought both chills and vexes me.

What about Esmie's father, who, in day's span of time, lost his wife to an act of heinous madness at the hand of his own daughter? The circumstances are shocking. The realization of it all, unbelievable. Talk about the worst nightmare come to life. Even imagining what it would be like makes my stomach unsettled and nervous. That poor man. How is he coping with life now? How has he coped with this real-life horror story over the past six years? It's enough to make your heart ache for a thousand years or more.

You can never truly know someone...can you? That's the question that I'm left with after all of this. That's the question that still lingers for me six years after this crime. That realization — that you can never truly know someone — is a bothersome echo that will remain in my psyche. I suppose this makes me cautious and suspicious of most people, friend or not.

I used to work with a guy who ended up in prison as a convicted pedophile. I had no clue it was in his nature. I used to converse with Esmie on LJ, and she ended up in prison for taking her mother's life. Again, I had no clue she was capable of such an act. This leads me to believe that anyone, at any time, is capable of anything. That notion scares the shit out of me, quite frankly.

I want to believe people are better than they usually are, and I'm always sad/confused/angry when it's proven they aren't. You can't trust anyone, can you? If you can, then how do you know whom to trust? There are adept liars and manipulators out there. Psychopaths. Sociopaths. All quite crafty and believable. So...how do you know?

There's a reason why it took nine months before I agreed to meet Paul in a public place for a cup of coffee. Even after I met him, I didn't trust that he was presenting himself as he truly was (a nice guy). Almost six years later, he's still that nice guy. I thought those males were long gone, but I guess I was lucky enough to get a specimen of a dying breed: The Truly Nice Guy.

The tragedy is that I don't want to be suspicious, fearful or distrusting of most people in the world. But, in the end, how can I not be? Everyone wears masks, and the mask changes depending on the company they keep, the situation they're in, the personal motives that lurk beneath their outer shell. At least that's how it seems to me.

In the end, I often feel that I can only trust myself, and perhaps a handful of others (at most). The only man I fully trust is my husband. There's a whole history behind that last statement, and for good reason. But I won't go into it here, at least not now.

Esmie, I wish I could rewind time. I wish you hadn't killed your mother. I wish you'd chosen a different path. I wish you'd seen that it was going to be okay, and you would make it through that period of your life. I wish I'd known the depths of what was going on, and that perhaps I could've talked to you -- maybe made a difference in some way or said something that would've struck a chord with you. But now look at things. Your poor mom, your poor dad, your poor friends, your poor family members. Last of all, poor you.

Such a tragedy all around. One that will forever remain in my mind. Questions will linger, unanswered.

People's spirits often haunt places, but events also haunt living souls. This one haunts mine.