Free Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn Page B

shrugs as if to dismiss her girlish musings just before her expression goes dark. “But things changed. The longer I was with them, the weirder things became.”
    Sandy explains that she met Jeff Halcomb in the summer of 1980. Less than a week after making his acquaintance, she accepted his invitation to tour the West Coast with the group. She remained with them for the better part of two years. Did she ever make the comparison between Halcomb and Charles Manson? Sandy shakes her head at me. “Never,” she insists. “I suppose I would have if [Halcomb and his group] had been scary . . .” She pauses, reconsiders her statement. “Then again, it’s not like I ever met any of the Manson kids. Maybe they weren’t as creepy as I imagine them to be.” But once things got frightening for Sandy, it was the beginning of a downward spiral. “I found out that Jeff was trying to get me pregnant,” she says. “I was only eighteen. It spooked me. We started arguing. And that’s when I started to doubt him. He couldn’t handle that.” She soon found herself falling out of favor with the group. “He got angry, like I was somehow betraying them all. We got into a fight when I accused him of using me. That’s when he told me I was worthless.” She frowns down at the table. “Obviously, it hurt to hear that. I loved him, and seeing the anger in his face . . . I just left. I guess that’s why they didn’t follow me. What’s the point of chasing someone who you deem a waste of time?”
    But even three years after her narrow escape, Sandy insists Jeffrey Halcomb had the best intentions for those he referred to as his family. “Jeff never wanted to hurt anyone,” she says. “He had some strange ideals, some weird points of view, but he wasn’t dangerous. I’m telling you, he loved everyone who put their trust in him. Sometimes I think that maybe I was wrong in running away. I think that maybe I misjudged him. I reacted that way because he hurt me. I wanted him to love me more than he loved the others, and that was wrong ofme. Jeffrey loved everyone equally. My jealousy ruined that.” And of the various crimes the media has tried to pin on Halcomb and his group, specifically the brutal double murder of Richard and Claire Stephenson of Pier Pointe, Washington, Sandy refutes the possibility of Jeffrey being involved. “At times, we had to do things we weren’t proud of to get by,” she tells me. “Yeah, sometimes it involved stealing. But we never went into houses when people were there. Jeff never intentionally hurt anyone.”
    Except that in the end, that was exactly what Jeffrey Halcomb did. Sandy, however, is not swayed by his conviction. “I admit, I miss the camaraderie,” she says. “When it was good, those were the best couple of years of my life.” When asked if she has attempted to contact Jeffrey Halcomb in Lambert Correctional Facility, where he is serving a life sentence for two counts of first-degree murder and eight counts of aiding and abetting, Sandy shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders with a girlish smile. “I’ve thought about it,” she confesses. “But I’m too embarrassed. I left in such a frenzy. I made a fool of myself.” When the waitress stops by our table, Sandy orders another cappuccino. She fidgets with a pack of Virginia Slims as I sip my water, watching her, wondering if she realizes just how close she came to being Jeffrey Halcomb’s personal acolyte.

8
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    L UCAS AND JEANIE spent their first night on an air mattress he had gotten out of the truck and tossed into the center of the living room. It had been easier than trying to single-handedly wrangle his king-sized mattress out of the truck in the midst of a downpour. But Lucas couldn’t help staring into the shadows while Jeanie slept beside him. He was waiting for something to shift in the darkness, remembering that strange figure he’d seen in the corner of the kitchen, waiting for something to move.
    When it