DEATH * BY * METH

This is dedicated to Travis Holappa who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered on July 25, 2004 in Northern Minnesota. This was all due to meth. I am Travis' mother and I wish to make this devastation turn into a better thing by educating and exposing the truth about meth, the dangers, and the deadly consequences it brings about to individuals and communities.

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Location: Colorado, United States

I want to do what I can to educate people about what is going on around the world with the meth problem. I want people to know about it BEFORE they even get the idea to want to try it. It is a dangerous drug and will ruin your life as well as all those who love you. I am on a mission on behalf of my only son, Travis.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Path of destruction (Iowa)

By KAREN HEINSELMAN, Courier Staff Writer
Editor's note: Jeffery Larson and Jen Bohnsack share a link. Their daughter, Ashley, is 13 years old. But the story doesn't end there. In 2003, Larson killed his mother, Pamela Burns, by beating her to death. Today's story examines events in Larson's troubled life.

WAVERLY --- The call for breakfast comes every morning at 7:15. Doors hum open. It is the first chance of the day for Jeffery Larson to venture outside. Or at least beyond his cell.

Sometimes, whether to sit and swing his feet over the bunk is the only decision he will make in a day. Depression. Isolation. Boredom --- too much time to think affords too many opportunities to relive past mistakes and his biggest regret, the act that delivered him to the state.

Anamosa State Penitentiary. Fifty years.

"Right now I'm doing good," Larson says through what appears to be an honest, serious expression. Or should that be read as disinterest. Or fatigue. Or prescription drug-induced mechanics.

"Just day by day."

Larson, 33, a former spontaneous traveler, can take two strides, maybe three, before hitting the cell door. One in another direction and he bumps into a toilet or wall. His television, like hundreds of others in the prison, is transparent, easing guards' efforts to find stashed weapons or drugs.

Bedroom, living room, bathroom. And, at times, dining room.

At specified times on designated days he is allowed to walk, lift weights, buy a snack. He tries to walk in the courtyard three miles every day. Eventually, Larson may get a job. Within the walls, of course.

Larson, once social, often chooses solitude in his cell over time with others. He stays in a part of the prison for inmates with special needs --- medical, physical or mental.

Out the barred window, a gloomy, rainy day. Probably cold. He can watch the sun come up and visitors parking cars.

"It's a nice view," he says.

Larson must serve at least 35 years for murdering his mother. Pamela Burns died of blunt force trauma. Larson beat her head with a baseball bat. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in November 2004 and avoided trial.

Larson apologized at his sentencing. He has repeated the thought several times since. He says he takes responsibility for the violence.

"I'm still sorry for what happened. I am still a sinner. I think God will forgive me."

Sometimes, he is more certain about God's grace.

"I didn't do it in cold blood."

Broken brain

Theories abound about why Larson killed: Drugs. Schizophrenia. A case of escalating sinful behavior. Premeditated angst skillfully masked as psychosis.

Larson concedes all --- save implications he is lying. Mental illness --- troubled hallucinations, delusions of grandeur --- made him strike his mother, he says.

Burns, 52, was a nurse at Waverly Health Center. At the time of her death, she was also a poet, a cancer patient and mother of six. Three of Larson's younger half brothers lived in Waverly at the time of Burns' death.

In Larson's skewed worldview, his mother was a demon. And he was on a divine mission from God to obliterate evil. The confrontation that resulted in murder began because of an argument about use of the family car. Larson attacked, fracturing his mother's skull.

See the rest of the story at:
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/top_story/a01da6d7d9ee4438862571280010913e.txt

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

excuse me but this story is about my father.

Thursday, February 06, 2014 8:02:00 PM  

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