SEX, DRUGS & BLOOD – REMEMBER THE ALAMO
THE STRANGE STOREY OF PORTNOY, RABALAIS & REGER
Mitchell Jon MacKay is responsible for this
TEXAS, 1994-1995. Guntotin’ Texas where all is settled by guns. Rusty Reger is doing time for shooting an assailant four times while under attack. He’s been in prison for almost twenty years. Rusty is something like 120+- pounds, his assailant 200 and muscular, or was. Now he’s probably dry bones. But his mother isn’t. Her bones rattle and clink every time she talks. And she talks. A lot.
Rabalais, Fred. This was a lawyer, a prosecuting attorney of Texas. He died of an overdose of cocaine or heroin, it hardly matters which. He prosecuted the case of Rusty Reger. Lawyers actually “do” cocaine, believe it or not. I know it seems outlandish and impossible but it’s true. Judges do too. I know this. Trust me. Please. Okay, enough of the importuning. Rabalais is or was indeed a Rabelaisian character in this plot, this drama.
Portnoy. Defense lawyer. His Complaint was insouciant, a bit part player of little consequence but for a compelling name. These characters are epic in that certain way that grade B movies attain, those that you can never release from your consciousness no matter how ridiculous or incongruent they may be to your best endeavors and thought processes. Those inane and sordid images stay with you indefinitely, most unfortunately, perhaps forever. That’s what soap operas are made of, tragicomedies too albeit in the higher state of dramaturgy – orchestra pits being the only discerning comparison as to the difference. This is melodrama in its most unrefined sense.
Doris Storey, quite a story in her own self. Son Matthew was the protagonist, now deceased. A muscular young Texan, a real gung-ho he-man type, sensual, handsome, the kind of guy everyone takes for granted as a hero or anti-hero if somewhat egoistic and inverted as to what’s right and what’s wrong. He might’ve been a Texas politician such as Rick Perry had he been highborn but, no, he was lowborn. Mother Doris is a charming southerner of that dialect so affected by the southern born, a kind of whiny southern belle demanding in-your-face demeanor which seems to promise a lot more than is ever delivered. Such are the wiles of woman in whatever venue born unto. This was/is written by a man, of course. Are female judges still getting even? Yep, you betcha.
Self-defense. That seemed to me to be the very essence of the Texas state of mind. If you couldn’t defend yourself in Texas, where would you go? That was the last bastion of the Wild West mentality. Rusty Reger shot a man in self-defense. There are, as always, mitigating circumstances, you know, the “however”, the “if, and & but” clauses to consider. Okay, okay, Rusty was drunk and drugged, in the spell of sexual mythology all too real and asphyxiating, the fog of familial negotiations, children running around, all that “stuff” of domestic intrigue. Suffice to say that the situation was less than desirable. The ex-husband – no, still husband legally speaking – of Rusty’s live-in concubine w/children came to take him out as in upside the head. That was a formidable consideration given the size difference of the two guys. Matt Storey was a bad dude and everybody knew it, especially Matt. Well, no, more so Rusty.
Throughout life we do what we have to do, no equivocation there. Come what may the situation evolves or devolves according to stage set and actors, rules and regulations of the times. Okay, had Rusty stayed in his townhouse home with live-in and kids and defended his home from wild Indians – no not that – or whomever, he might not have even been arrested for murder. But he opted, as he said, to take it to the border to save the family from harm and confront the Indians – no, the intruder at the gate or the street venue. He had a rifle over his shoulder, a deer-slayer squirrel hunter was he since childhood. This was equivalent to a stockade embattlement circumstance, I would instill in the reader, an Alamo experience. This was, after all, Texas.
Rusty Reger was drunk, high and in fear for his life or bodily health at least that night that he grabbed his rifle off the mantelpiece and proceeded to the street to confront his foe who he knew was coming to beat him to a bloody pulp fiction. No, bloody pulp – this was all too real. He stood to lose a few teeth, an eye, and gain a few weeks in the hospital recuperating. This would have been a David and Goliath confrontation without a slingshot upside the head. Rusty would have been a dead-ringer without a bell. Instead he opted to shoot his opponent and gain the advantage of what is becoming known as the time-honored concept of self-defense, now termed Castle Rights, Stand Your Ground and suchlike that lawyers and journalists like to coin as shibboleths. Well, drink and drugs can lend a hand toward bravado, ‘tis true, and many a man has prevailed or gone down under such emotional decisiveness of the moment, those everlasting moments that never fail to revisit the consciousness. You can’t rid yourself of those apparitions easily. Rusty has been dealing with them for almost twenty years.
Okay, the equivalent of the Perry Mason moment in the courtroom occurred via an intrepid investigator by name Jim Dark, a former Army Intelligence man, a member of the NRA in prominent standing, a mild mannered fellow of integrity and intelligence. Jim uncovered inadvertently by his good nature and ingenuous personality a diffuse tidbit of information formerly unknown, unrecorded, that lent the invaluable differential to the case of murder versus self-defense. The cop interviewed by Jim blurted out that he had cause to break the arm of the deceased to fit his body into the body bag that aftermath of the shooting night then approaching daylight. The prosecuting attorney – the guy that overdosed – claimed that Rusty had broken the guy’s arm in the tussle leading to the death of the opponent in that skirmish. A volatile point indeed. Who was attacking and who was attacked?
The case has just been taken up by the Texas Innocence Project and they don’t mess around. They get the facts and they get ‘em good. They’ll get to this cop who broke the dude’s arm to make him fit and substantiate that Rusty could not have done so since he was supine on his back and struggling with Matt Storey while aiming his rifle and shooting four times. Four times?! Well, yeah, it’s overkill. One would have to place oneself in such circumstances and imagine someone twice as big as you coming at you ready to kill to envision the adrenal state. My guess is that, sure, you’d do anything you could think to do with whatever was available to stop the attack without regard to aftermath. The survival instinct would doubtlessly kick in to overdrive, or more precisely four-wheel drive. Innocence Projects don’t take cases unless there’s a probability of exoneration. They work through universities most often and utilize student input through attorney teachers that work on salary and have the benefit of university facilities for research and development. They’ll get him out.
The gist, as far as anyone outside looking in can tell, is that Matt Storey was a bully and a real bastard with women, I suppose the typical schoolyard punk. Drunk and drugged through schooling and thereafter he couldn’t hold a steady job, was married to Vicki, had kids, abused her of course, she leaving, and moved in with Rusty who treated her kindly but she never lost her affection for Matt. After Rusty shot Matt, Vicki left for another state where I wrote to her on Rusty’s advice as a reliable confidante. Wrong. That letter ended up with Doris Storey. Now when Jim Dark calls Vicki the ring is transferred to Doris’ phone. See what I mean, Verne?
So we have Portnoy’s Complaint, Rabalais’ vehement Rabelaisian prosecution and Portnoy’s incompetence, and a Storey tale of smear campaign leading to a life sentence with parole at 30 years possible. I guess that’s the consolation prize for the former Texas sentiment of self-defense. Doris and family were said to have spread newspaper and flier notices condemning Rusty and Vicki too at some point. Very strange indeed, this convoluted miasma of vindictiveness.
Christina entered the picture since she was with Matt the night he drove to Rusty’s home, concocted a tale that made it appear Rusty was the attacker and not Matt. Christina was Matt’s live-in at the time. The memoir written by Vicki’s mother, Callie Ragon entitled “CALLIE’S SILVER BOOK OF MEMORIES” is a soap operatic grade B movie script that no sensible director would even look at lest he wanted nothing more than a hoot and a holler to break up his day with mirth and dalliance. The memoir tells the story blatantly and candidly though in all its ingloriousness, sordid and lame. One would have to accept the homuncular basis as the guiding social order to make any sense out of it all, stone age people in modern dress essentially. Typically for a predictable percentage of the younger generation which will experiment with drugs and alcohol and everything else popular in their time, the scenario plays out accordingly as if that were the acceptable way to be. Most of us are caught up in the antics of our times when young.
So, Vicki went through men like whiskey & Coke and doobies but remained transfixed by Matt Storey consistently though he was a no-account no-good. Doris Storey and husband covered for Matt most times, enabled him as the psychological phrase goes. Matt was a cowboy looking for an OK Corral. He found it in Rusty Reger, an intrepid little guy who claimed title of David against Goliath. Cops didn’t think much of that analogy though some did commiserate due to Matt’s MO. Neither did Doris, judge or jury. Rabalais, Fred, as said made much of the inverse of David & Goliath as if David were the bad guy who broke the arm of Goliath while shooting him four times. It’s doubtful Rusty could have broken one fingernail of Matt’s hand and if a rifle wound had done it forensics could substantiate a timeline and a lot more.
Jim Dark in his indomitable style is researching all leads and since the Innocence Project has stepped in nothing will be swept under the Texas sand as was alleged at the arrest and trial of Rusty Reger. Doris is still vehement in her crusade to block any attempts at freeing Rusty, even writing to him in prison with accusatory language and ending with prayers for his eternal salvation, kind of a paradoxical or schizophrenic gesture. She also calls Jim Dark regularly with her rants and ridicule. Of course the legal crew will sort all that out and present it to the authorities that deal with such things as reexamined and new evidence which is the basis for Innocence Projects in line with the accepted manner of establishing wrongful conviction via the usual criteria. That criteria comes to manipulated or withheld evidence, erroneous victim or witness identification inclusive of jailhouse informants, prosecutorial zealotry, and insufficient defense.
There’s no DNA involved with this case but there are photographs and pathology reports, pro bono accounts of coroner and PI investigations. The only mitigating perspective that incriminates is the fact that Rusty left his home with a rifle instead of standing his ground inside or on his front porch. He claimed he went out to confront his attacker to avoid confrontation in the home which would endanger the kids and his live-in girlfriend who was still legally bound to Matthew Storey. You get the gist here? Texas lore gone awry. I’d have presumed Texans to be more the Matt Dillon type of pondering situations carefully in sequence but then we hear of rush to judgment cases all the time and those Texas prisons are filled to the brim, executions every year too. There have been over 300 exonerations thus far via DNA and some without it. The University of Michigan law school has a program devoted to non-DNA type wrongful conviction cases. This appears to be a growing concern that now even Texas has taken up.
This body bag bit seems to fit the criteria for reexamining cases since it’s new evidence or withheld evidence even though the cop probably didn’t think anything of it at that time, just a part of the shift that night fulfilled in any way that seemed expedient. Still, it would seem a bit irregular to break a stiff’s arm just to pack him in. And a strong arm that was at that so the cop must be a hefty guy himself.
The body laid there for hours while they tried to wrench Rusty out of his attic hiding place – finally having to tear part of the ceiling down – because apparently nothing could be processed until an arrest was made. Seems a bit lax to me to leave a body lying in the street for hours as rigor mortis set in, but then process and procedure trumps principle every time these days. Cops are not Medical Examiners despite so-called Crime Scene Investigative Detective training and accreditation.
Christina’s flimsy concocted tale of assault made it to the courtroom and the jury bought it so there’ll be that to be reexamined. The forensic pathologist has agreed to change his report on Matt’s demise due to Jim Dark’s new evidence. At least one juror has expressed willingness to revise his verdict. Vicki is reportedly near comatose, toothless and deranged, looking 70 years of age (my age) and moribund so she’ll not likely be of much use for testifying. The Texas DA is said to have contacted all jurors from that trial of the 1990s to warn them (too late) of the advent of Jim Dark who’s asking a lot of questions, so we can see how Texas justice still adheres to the well-worn attitude of swift justice, no regrets, no second thoughts. This has been a national presentiment for decades and cops and prosecutors have enjoyed immunity from indictment for wrongful conviction even if evidence and testimony are falsified. I’ve studied this phenomenon for a decade and found it to be verified even in police reports and trial transcripts. You’d think that such blatant irregularities would not be allowed to pass by un-scrutinized. But you’d be wrong. Prosecutors and judges allow it to pass by every day with nary a thought as to injustice. Cops lie in report and on the witness stand every day all in a day’s work. As attorney Alan Dershowitz says, it’s established conduct that all pretend to justify just to keep things functioning, and truly says he, the system would not function so expeditiously unless allowance for this manipulation were acceptable. The US Constitution is thereby usurped and superseded regularly, merely a quaint allusion to propriety. The Bill of Slights if you will – our Rights have been slighted.
Thus the tale of, the Storey of Rabalais, Portnoy et al winds down into more court drama and imminent release for Rusty Reger on some sort of new evidence basis. They’ll hardly admit to wrongful conviction but they’ll find wording that suffices for “justice” served. Doris will still fight tooth and nail to avenge her son as Hatfields and McCoys will always do. I suppose some sort of restraining order will come into play there as Jim Dark unveils his findings of coerced railroading and calumniation and all things pejorative and suborning emerge. The DA will resist of course but some judge will heed the Innocence lawyers with new evidence in hand and go with the escalating flow of remission. Rusty’s done enough time now to satisfy most discerning persons and it may even be said he oughtn’t have done any time at all for self-defense. I’m one of those.
DARK PRESS PUBLISHING LLC of Texas is the right avenue for such a project. Jim Dark is in no way the Film Noir of melodrama but the name lends itself well anyway as this dark drama case unfolds in its penultimate phases. Maybe there will never be an ultimate denouement, who knows? What Jim’s done is facilitate what plausibly no one else could but for perhaps an Innocence Project. He found the missing link.
Mulkey, Ralph, that’s the arm-breaking cop’s name – Murky would have been even better for my purposes – will probably retire since the precinct is no doubt in an uproar over this revelation that will free Rusty. The DA has already gotten to the boys in blue, one would imagine as further phone messages are not responded to, and Mulkey’s on the spot over this. He could lie under oath to be sure but with an Innocence Project on the case that’d be risky. There will be reexamined autopsy reports come to bear on this, scrutinized testimonies, all evidence put in a different perspective now. I never intended to run with this story myself because it’s too far away for any detailed investigation; and besides Jim Dark’s on it and well met.
Actually I know of no precedent like unto this current system of wrongful and vengeful conviction, the rush to judgment and filling of prisons on such a large scale. Totalitarian societies have surely been around forever but apart from Nazis and Communists no full scale gulags or concentration camps have appeared to my knowledge but do take on the emulation of those travesties here with the current and recent past accumulation of laws and sentencing policies so adamantly incursive on our culture. The sense one gets is of purposeful crime and punishment promulgation to satisfy quotas and generate money changing. Jesus wouldn’t know where to begin. The Spaniards wiped out entire civilizations, ‘tis true, but as far as we know they didn’t bother to falsely accuse, convict and incarcerate; they just obliterated. Some have called the Nazi leaders “the gentlemen killers” due to their “banality of evil” demeanor. That’s a fair analogy to America’s legal system now. The Governors and legislators seem to enjoy their roles as incriminating and incarcerating despots. They and hirelings even state proudly, “Build them and they will come” in reference to more prisons both public and private. Prison is good business. Tough on Crime fits well into the death penalty state of Texas with former Governor george w bush and co. They’re not alone though by any gauge. Stalin’s Great Purge may have been a time of terror as was Hitler’s rampage but America’s purge though coming in more refined way is every bit as devastating.
But these episodes are slowly being addressed and often worked out at least to the satisfaction of clearing some names with restitution forthcoming for lost years. Falsely convicted victims can never be fully reconstituted into the society they were banished from but they at least have the stigma of having been wronged in body and name removed for the duration of the rest of their lives.
This “Storey” assumes the epic proportions mostly due to the names involved and the preposterous characterizations in the same vein as John Grisham’s tale THE INNOCENT MAN. It’s actually an epidemic, this rush to judgment and “surplus order”. At least America can still reinvent itself when the wheel goes flat. The pendulum swing appears to be on the return. But where she stops, nobody knows.
Probably the most remarkable aspect here is the mundane way all is enacted by all parties, “the banality of evil” as one author phrased it. Acceptable it apparently was to live drunk and drugged with a house full of kids (not abnormal in our times), have rifles around the home within easy reach for one aspect; leave a body out on the street for hours for another; cops were said to have been called innumerable times about Matt Storey’s bullying and belligerent ways to no effect since cops can’t do anything until after the fact; the courtroom scene and news and flier campaign by the Storey clan is classic calumniation and legally chargeable slander. It goes on and on with the Grade B nuances. But everyone seemed to accept the melodrama as just another normal day. “Oh, just another family squabble murder and a life sentence; who’s on Leno tonight?”
Rusty’s already done near 20 of his mandatory 30 minimum so at best he’ll regain 10 years of his life. But every minute is precious when you’re counting those kinds of numbers, scratching daily marks into the concrete walls as it were. As they say, “it’s timeless time”. It’s a Rabelaisian tale a bit more dynamic than Portnoy’s Complaint, but it’s a Storey worth reading. You oughta check out the s’opera by Vicki Storey’s mother sometime. Well, maybe not. It might be like that song you can’t get out of your head day or night for weeks and weeks and comes back to haunt you years later. Gawd! That’s horrible. See what I mean, Verne?
There’s an addendum already in progress. Dr. Harry Bonnell, a medical forensics expert, was interested in helping Rusty formerly. With this latest revelation he wrote back to Rusty saying that this was certainly a “game-breaker” but that “it is not going to happen”, meaning a court-worthy exoneration bid, also that “there is no way to determine, at this point, how severely it was fractured”. This is not true. Exhumation would accomplish the analytical examination even twenty years after the fact. Forensic work can establish manner of death centuries later and extrapolate lifestyle, even facial features and location of origin. There are many books written about this fascinating field of work. Clearly somebody “got to” Dr. Bonnell just as the obvious parties got to inspector Ralph Mulkey who now refuses phone calls from Jim Dark. See what I mean, Verne? I believe you do. Now to make the next judge and jury see the light. More’n likely the state of Texas will just spring Rusty to get rid of him and the rest of us. They certainly don’t need any more bad publicity. They’re still trying to live down Lyndon Johnson and george dubya bush. Doctor Harry Bonnell was investigated for “gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, and incompetence” in the year 2000.
Craig Watkins, the first black DA of Dallas County, Texas, was acquitted of conspiracy charges recently, he the DA who professed to clean up the prosecutorial miasma that was Dallas legal authority. You get the drift here. Lisa Blue, a contributor – no, you don’t wanna go there – the vivacious young white protagonist was contended against an oil scion and a female judge who were shouted down in their potentially racist allegations as well as certainly their malfeasant crony influence in Texas justice.
Rusty Reger is just the latest casualty in this ongoing Storey of calumniation, Rabelaisian mockery of Just Us Complaint a la Portnoy. What’s wrong with protecting one’s home from invasion? Shoot the bad guy. Makes sense to me. Apparently not to Texans though. At least not the legal ones. Of course that calls into question the very issue of legality. There is that Second Amendment thing. And Lisa Blue. Last scene: Private Eye in third floor rear office, whiskey bottle in drawer, female figure outside dingy door window. Tom Waits music. Fade to dark.
©2012-13 MJM
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