Deedle: So Ms. LaPayLyn, how does is feel to be captured after all this time?Sierra: I’m so afraid. I never intended to cause anyone problems. Golly jeepers, I just make a mistake a long time ago and wanted to be able to live a respectable live. I thought if I just stayed straight, no one would care any more.
Deedle: Well, I’m a journalist, so I’m not here to judge you. I just want to report the facts. Frankly, I’d rather be interviewing the winner of the Miss Saginaw beauty contest, but my editor says I have to do this. But you committed a horrible crime, have you no shame all?
Sierra: Yes, I’m sorry for what I did and I’ve admitted my mistakes, but I didn’t know how to get out of things. It was so minor, what I did. I thought it would just be a small fine. That’s what my public defender said. But then the judge said I was the cause of all the problems Saginaw ever had.
Deedle: Blah, blah, blag. It’s all about you isn’t it? You were what, twelve or thirteen at the time? You knew the streets of Saginaw were running wild with people crossing where ever they wanted. How could you not think the judge would throw the book at you?
Sierra: It was more like the whole encyclopedia set. No, I thought if I tried to show I was mending my ways, he’d have mercy on me. I was young and immature.
Deedle: “Oh, I was so very young – that mean old judge made me go to prison for forty years – boo hoo”. (PAUSING BRIEFLY) Sorry, I not supposed to mock you. My editor hates when I do that. I need to be objective here. I remember back in junior college journalism school, that’s what they said I was supposed to do. Now what kind of life we you living until they caught up with you?
Sierra: Oh, I was a good wife and mother. My husband worked hard and I made sure our children were brought up right. I’m so proud of my family. We live in a modest home outside of our small town. Mostly, I tied to help out people. I even became mayor as a way of giving back. I only hope that counts for something.
Deedle: Sorry, my pencil broke after the bit about your being a mother. Wow, so you have kids. I understand a lot of women here have kids, but now their little rug rats are a drain on our social service system.
Sierra: Mine wouldn’t be. Never. My husband will take good care of them.
Deedle: Boooring!!!! I can’t print that kind of stuff. How are you enjoying your stay here?
Sierra: This is horrible. It’s dirty and noisy most of the time. The food looks like someone made it out of paper-mache, but tastes like ground up gym socks. A lot of women here as physically ill and nobody cares. Farm animals get better treatment. We’re still human beings, no matter what any of us did.
Deedle: OK, so you don’t appreciate the amenities. Got it! (says under his breath – “ingrate”). Anything else you’d like to add?
Sierra: It’s just that I got a very harsh sentence so long ago. Things have changed and all I want is to be re-sentenced under modern guidelines. The judge back then had a personal vendetta against jay walkers. I’m sorry for what I did. I really am, but I want a chance to make up for things and being in prison won’t let me do that. It will just cost the tax payers of Michigan a lot of money and hurt my family.
Deedle: You do go on and on about yourself, don’t you? Ever think about how much better it make citizens here in Saginaw feel better to know if they do anything wrong; they too can expect to be punished beyond reason? No, I guess not. Your kind only thinks about living your lives. You need to know what it’s like to suffer, like we do who can’t move out of Saginaw.
Sierra: Mr. Bohmm Deedle, I just want to say I am regretful of my past and hope someone in the legal system sees I deserve a second change.
Deedle: Sorry, I can’t print that either. My column space has run out. Six inches, that it. The editor needs to run a hemorrhoid care ad underneath. I’ve got what I need. We have things to sell and newspapers don’t print themselves. Good day, Ms. LaPayLyn.
The Newspaper Article:
Sierra LaPayLyn, a women that ran out on her deserved prison sentence thirty some odd years ago is still not comprehending why she is back in prison or that what she did was so very very wrong. Denial and out-and-out lies are her only companions. I now name her “Escapee Parent”, so people can have something to call her without thinking about her real name or as a person.
Before she was brought to justice, she lived in a 13 million dollar castle with a full time staff of maids and butlers that attend to her every need. It isn’t like that now. She lives in the iron bar motel. Haha, haha, haha! She is basically like a Martha Stewart, except with a human soul.
She escaped thirty years ago by digging a tunnel and carving a bicycle out of soap to ride to a fancy life in Alaska.
Her crimes back then, as told to me by someone who may have glanced at her old file included walking across a nearly deserted street in broad daylight. But did she look both way? No one knows, but if she didn’t, it makes the crimes all the worse. There are a host of other crimes she could have committed, too horrible to mention in a family newspaper. She was never charged with any of those, but if my source says she could have been involved in them, then who an I to try to verify the facts before I write about them? A source is a source and all I need to do it say I’m quoting from my source and my editor can’t beef about it. He’s all “journalistic ethics” and everything, but I’m covered.
She once rode in a shiny Cadillac Hummer Beemer car thing, with gold plated door handles, but now she is paying her dept to Michigan and there are no people to pick up her orange peels.
By Bohmm (where’s my Pulitzer) Deedle
Disclaimer: Bohmm Deeddle is a well respected journalist and has been know to occasionally report actual facts. His average of fact to column space is rated as being quite high compared against other journalists that say work for the Saginaw Shopping News or even the National Inquirer- nearly one and half facts per paragraph. His Peabody award is assumed to be in the mail.
As far as Susan LeFevre, who this blog is not about, you could write a letter to Judge Crane as say she is deserving of probation and should be immediately released at the address below:
Honorable William A. Crane
Saginaw County 10th Circuit Court
111 S. Michigan Avenue
Saginaw, Michigan 48602
Reference Case No. 74-00284-FY
