“Pink Diary”

During college I lived on the East Side of Milwaukee and was going to school at UW-Milwaukee. I had been selling pot and pretty much anything I could make me money. In spring of 2008 I had been dealing for about three years, and was finishing my Junior year of college and thought I had everything under control. What does everyone do when they have it all under control? They get a dog. So, I ended up getting a dog. Meanwhile, I had a girlfriend at the time, so the dog was for her and for me. There are going to be many more stories to come, some that includes the three years we had MaryJane together up until 2011. In 2011, my addiction grew to the point where I ended up using needles for the first time. Because I started using needles, and my girlfriend wanted to get clean, she ended up leaving. We had been snorting heroin for 3 years, through all the crazy shit that happened. She was finally done and since I was getting worse, not better, she left. That was the first time I went to detox. She is still clean from heroin. After our breakup I moved; to Wausau, Wisconsin, great city….. I ended up moving up there and staying with my mom at first until I was able to get a job and a place of my own. I had moved around July and by August I was already working and was doing pretty good on the Suboxone program. I finally did get a place and my dad helped me get set up. Again, I thought things were going really well. At first I biked 15 miles to work and left MaryJane at home, which was nice for my Mom until I moved. MJ really was a sweetheart and just made everyone happy. I got MaryJane through a friend I use to buy large amounts of weed off of. MaryJane was half German Shepard, and quarter Rottweiler and a quarter Lab and I would always say the best parts of each. She saved my life once for sure, and who knows how many other times, when she was the only one there to wake me up. MJ had been stepped on or something before we got her and the second toe on her left front paw was missing. So it was the cutest thing, when it rained, that paw would have three toe prints, instead of four.Eventually, I was doing so well, that my Dad got me a car and I drove to work after that. At work I did really well from about August until November and through a buddy that I still talk to, I met a girl and at first she seemed really cool. During this time I was just smoking and trying to sell a little bud to support how much I smoked. I was working and making enough money to support myself and my doggie. Then the girl I met at work would hang out and smoke and eventually we hooked up and then started just always hanging out. Except well……… Well I would go to Milwaukee to see my ex because she wanted to see MaryJane, and well I was picking up heroin. I had been making good money and after I was given the car, I figured I could try to use it successfully because I had the money and thought I could figure it out this time. How to use and work and not let my family find out. I thought I could do all of that successfully. I would get paid every two weeks and would head down to Milwaukee which is 186 miles one way. I still remember that and it was nine years ago now. While I would leave, the girl that I was kickin it with would stay at my house until I got back. I could no longer afford the house I was renting so I had to move to a one bedroom upper on the other side of Wausau. For a while it seemed like everything was normal when I would leave. I had no clue but while I was gone the girl at my house started doing things to MaryJane, hoping something happened to her. MJ must have been the toughest dog in the world. Not one day did I think she was sick. I was on heroin, but I really just had no idea. My mom had distanced herself from how bad my addiction was, but I wish I would have just let her have MJ, knowing I couldn’t take care of her. MJ would never bite anyone unless they threatened me.Every time I was gone I had no idea what was happening to MJ. The first time something happened I was still living in the first house. I had arrived back from a day trip to Milwaukee, it took about six hours total if I drove the speed limitish, and MaryJane was not in the house or outside in the yard. The girl was inside though, I’m just gonna call her that from now on, so I asked her where MaryJane was. She said “she got out”, I asked what happened and why she did not call me. She said “she just broke free and ran”, I said why was the gate open, and why did you not put her leash on her before you let her go. MJ weighed maybe 50lbs. She said something like I didn’t see if she got out of the gate or if she jumped the fence. Which she could probably do pretty easy, but remember when I said she lost a toe. She would protect me, but she was always timid when it came to things like that. It is much easier, now, to look back and be like what the fuck was I thinking. But with a clouded drug mind, and wanting to trust that a person could never be that evil. It wasn’t even a trust or not trust thing because I really had no idea. I just thought, well maybe the gate was open and she slipped free. I thought well maybe the whole thing is possible. Then not shortly after the veterinarian called, and said someone had brought MaryJane in and she had been hit by a car. The veterinarian fixed her up and my step mom and dad paid for her to get fixed up. The second I got there MJ was wagging her tail and licking my face, with her busted chin. Hit by a car, and she only got 4 stitches in her chin. Everything seemed like a big accident and now I had her back. And remember, I had literally just got back home from the city. I only knew she wasn’t home for about 10 minutes because I had just got back. I keep trying to justify why I was not there to protect MJ, and I hate that. I feel guilty everyday that I wasn’t there to protect her and stop that monster from doing what she was doing to her. I really just did not know. I hated myself for a long time for not knowing what actually shook down this first incident. It’s easy for people to judge, because of how I tell the story and the fact that everyone knows what ultimately happened. Why she did not call me when MJ got free and why I didn’t think about that at the time. Still messes with me. But like I said, I was so fucked up on drugs and literally not even ten minutes after I knew, and the Vet and my Mom were calling because our phone numbers were on MaryJanes tagThen the second time, It had been about a month or so, just after MJ was healed from getting hit by a car and I came home and the whole bedroom was wrecked. Which I thought was odd, however, this time MJ was home and the girl wasn’t. The television was knocked off stand and the stand was knocked over and MJ had a huge bump on her head. I immediately took her back to the vet. Same vet as before, and the vet said she thought it was an ear infection that may have moved. To the middle of her head. The Vet ended up draining the bump of the fluid, packing it with gauze and putting a cone around MJ’s neck so she couldnt mess with her head. MJ was such a good sport for those two weeks. She was really an amazing dog. It was just a very odd situation and of course the girl said nothing. Then the vet drained it and put a cone on MJ’s head. I was not buying the ear infection but I went the wrong way with my thought process. Because, again, I never thought anyone I knew could ever be so evil. I had peanut butter on the TV stand and thought it was possible that MJ went for the peanut butter and it knocked the TV on her head or the peanut butter itself hit her. I did not really know what to think but the Vet did not think it seemed odd and again said nothing about any kind of potential abuse. Just two incidents that just happened like the rest of life occurs. It was not impossible and without anyone telling me that they thought it could have been foul play. I just moved on and continued using and thinking everything was ok. All of what happened before really was not the girl trying too hard to get rid of MaryJane. And what happened next should have woke me up. But again, heroin was the main focus and nothing was going to stop me from using. Then, one day not too long before June 4th, I came around the corner from the bedroom to the bathroom in our little one bedroom upper. There she was pinning MJ to the ground with her knee on top of her. I am so not a violent person whatsoever, I am very against any form of domestic violence or any situation in which someone physically assaults a person for a reason that doesn’t condone it. Instantly I grabbed the girl up and pinned her to the wall and was like what the fuck. The girl said MJ pissed on her. Well MaryJane never pissed inside or shit or anything ever. I was like if you have an issue with her, you come get me and I will deal with MJ. I also said if you make me choose, i’m choosing MaryJane, so don’t make me pick. Just get along with her, she is a dog and doesn’t do anything wrong. I never should have said that in hindsight, and why I ever let MJ stay with her after that, I will never know. It took me a long time to forgive myself for that as well. I just never saw the girl do anything else ever, and I knew the girl didn’t like MaryJane, but MJ never really showed it towards her. MJ didn’t ever seem overly afraid of the girl and never showed any signs of being sick at all or getting thin or anything like that. She never lost hair and never was sick at all. One time in Milwaukee she picked a used condom up and I had to pull it out of her mouth, so I knew she ate weird shit sometimes. MJ maybe puked three times that whole year. I just didn’t know or just never wanted to believe it. Heroin. Sucks.Then one day my dad came up from Milwaukee and we went to a mexican food place and I got a haircut because I wasn’t spending my money on cutting my hair and I had therapy, my first and only session that year. Sean called when we were getting food which actually was the last thing we did before we went home. I had given the girl my cell phone so she texts my dad phone and says “she just shit”. Mind you, MJ never did that in the house, ever, so then I was worried and my dad and I headed home. I told the girl to just leave her alone and I will be right there. I got home and as my dad and I pulled up the driveway I was looking to the left as we went up the driveway and past the building to the back area where the wooden staircase leading to our door was. As the porch came into my line of sight, I noticed MaryJanes legs hanging off of the porch. She did not move at all as we pulled up which, if anyone has a dog knows, if someone is there, then the dog is going to move. I jumped out as fast as I could and ran up the stairs. I found my beautiful MJ on my upstairs porch dead.The girl was inside texting. Instantly my dad thought she did it. I defended the girl, because again I thought there was no way that someone could be that evil. Wow, I was naive, immature, irresponsible and fucked up on drugs. That made me unaware of what was going on right in my own home and immediately we took MaryJane to the vet to see what they said the cause of death was. I guess I just needed the proof, I could not just jump to that because I just did not believe it.The vet said MJ did not seem poisoned and there were no signs of abuse. It was odd because MJ had three cuts on her that were not there that morning when I was playing fetch with her. However they were not bleeding and the Vet did not think that those puncture wounds had anything to do with MJ’s death. The Vet also determined that MJ’s glands were not dried up at all so she was not given rat poison or anything like that, so the Vet all but ruled out poisoning, after the 150 dollar autopsy my dad paid for they said they could do a 1,500 dollar autopsy to find out the exact cause of death but with all signs kind of ruling out foul play. We decided to just have MJ cremated and just say goodbye. My dad did call the cops on the girl and the cops came out and questioned everyone and they also came to the conclusion that it was just an incidental death. That was June 4th 2012, I was devastated and what gave me comfort was the fact that maybe MaryJane could tell how sick I was and let herself go to save me because I could hardly even take care of myself. If I only knew what that girl was doing the whole time. The girl even consoled me after, because I was very upset, I was still on drugs but after four years with MJ, being together everyday, because I didn’t work, it was so hard to not have her around anymore, I left her dog bowl and food out until I abandoned that place and moved to Milwaukee. My dad knew the girl did it but we had no way to prove it and I still did not believe it. I wish we had been able too, because my life just got worse after I lost the girlfriend I dated for four years and the dog I had for four years within 11 months.2012 was a wild year for my addiction, I took it to new depths that I had never been a part of before. I began stealing and my lucrative Walmart heist cheme was foiled. On October 12th 2012 we were both arrested for retail theft. The girl was my accomplice for all of the thefts that I was charged with. After that first arrest I was hit with six retail theft cases in five counties in the same month. We were using heroin the whole time, from the first time she stole some out of my stash in the original house I lived in, all the way to when we got arrested. Was all of 2012 and a little bit into 2011 when we started using together. We were arrested and my parents went to the foreclosed house we had been staying at on 69th and Burleigh in Milwaukee. The house had been owned by a friend of my dads who allowed us to stay there until she officially sold the house. The ladies house we were staying at was actually the person who got to it first. The lady had called my dad and said she had our belongings and he could come pick up some of the things. As they arrived to pick up our things, she presented them the Pink Diary. The same pink diary that the girl had the whole time we were together, the same pink diary she wrote in every day. The same pink diary that I never read ever not once because that is who I am. To me a woman’s purse and her diary are off limits. Just a privacy, personal thing. Everyday I wish I was more like some people, yes, I wish I would have read it but it was and is not who I am. That is my integrity, even on drugs, just never would do that. I did not read the diary. Wish I had. Maybe not though. I probably would not have been ready for what was in it. As my dad and step mom read what the girl had written, they were sickened, appalled and outraged. Immediately they were contacting Wausau Police. I am going to have “quotes” around all of her direct quotes that are still concreted in my head. All of the other situations that occurred during the time the girl was in MaryJane and my life, were explained in the Pink Diary. In the diary the girl explains how she let MJ out of the back yard and kicked her and MaryJane ran. As MJ sprinted out of the back yard and over the sidewalk into the road. Smash! MaryJane got hit by a car, “I wish she would have been killed when she got hit by the car.” Sickening. There was so much in the diary that I never saw and so much that I am sure I did not want to see. When I took MJ to the Vet for the bump on her head. The diary said that the girl had chased MJ around and beat her in the head with a glass bottle because MJ was getting on her nerves. The bottle did not knock MaryJane out and the girl left because she could not deal with MJ anymore. The Pink Diary then explained what the girl had been up to while I was gone getting heroin in Milwaukee. She had poisoned MJ for two months with pain pills and whatever she could find under the sink that might cause MaryJane to die. MJ had puked up pills one time the whole time I was with the girl and since I had to pull that condom, used, out of her mouth a random pill was not as alarming as it should have been. Underneath our wooden porch there was the garbage and I always just attributed anything weird she ate to her going through the trash. Which she never did, but could have once I guess. The point is for her to eat something and puke up a random pill once, just did not seem unusual. ” the pleasure I get from watching her whimper as a pour drano and bleach down her throat is like no other.” Sick fuck! That line made me want to catch a more serious felony. I wanted to kill her. I luckily forgave her by the time she got out of prison or I would have killed her, I needed to forgive her so I could begin to heal. That was about 2015 when I was finally able to make peace with everything related to her role in killing MaryJane. Forgiving myself for not being aware of it or stopping it. I think that is what this is all about. The cops charged her with serious crimes instantly. She was charged with Felony Animal Cruelty and Felony Poisoning an animal. As the cops were doing their job, the media was doing their job and as the story broke. I had made my plans to finally go to Florida for rehab, which is another chapter of my life, that I will get to. MaryJanes beauty, and innocence incorporated with her horrific demise captivated the city, then the state, then it was on Good Morning America and in USA today. I was of course part of the story, and I was known as the boyfriend, and MJ as the boyfriend’s dog. The media had dropped the Jane part in MaryJanes name and would just start calling her Mary which I also thought helped resonate with people. The name Mary was such an uncommon dog name, even though it was not really her real name. It really became a huge deal across the world. I started receiving emails from everyone and everywhere, I had emails from all over the world. It was hard because nine out of ten people were very supportive, and then you had the few that really thought that I had something to do with it, or I knew and I did nothing to stop it. Which could not have been further from the truth. I had no idea and no one in my family claimed to know or think anything until after the fact. A lot of good that did for MaryJane. However, something good did come out of MaryJanes murder, because that is what it was. During the initial trial over 100,000 people signed an online petition for her to get the max sentence which at the time was only 5 years which was definitely not fair, also there were about 15,000 emails and 1,000 handwritten letters sent to the judge recommending the girl get the max sentence. This was some of the most reoccurring news in the Wausau area from 2012 until 2014 and the girl has actually been in the news since so the case is brought up periodically. You know how I said something good came out of MJs murder. Well, in Wisconsin they created a new law which requires the Veterinarian to report any suspicious injuries they see to the authorities. We had gone to the Vet twice in not a very long time, but after each incident we had to do follow up, so we were at the Vet quite a bit. Nothing was said ever about any sort of of abuse. She was on heroin. That was her excuse to the judge. inwhich the judge said he had done over 250 heroin related cases, and never once have they seen animal cruelty like this. MJ seemed to be fine everyday to me which made all of this just seem so impossible. The news got word of the puncture wounds and the poisoning so the news article was “Woman poisons dog, then slits dog’s throat,” because of the puncture marks on MJ’s chest. “she just wouldn’t die”. The quotes I remember, haunt me in my conscious and my subconscious. MaryJane was my baby girl, before I had my son, my baby boy. It was devastating I let this happen, it was devastating that I let someone get close to me that could do something like this.Just did not make any sense to me.I understand everything that was said about me. I may not have like it, but I was the owner of MaryJane, she was my responsibility to keep safe and I was not able to do that. I know the story is horrific and I was truly hated by a bunch of people that I did not know. Everyone close to me saw me with MJ<3 and knew there was no way I had any clue about anything that was going on. They knew I would not allow that even 1% , if I knew about it. I was high and that will never be a legitimate excuse for what I allowed to happen under my watch. I did not protect MJ like she protected me. MaryJane had saved my life once in 2009 while I was selling weed. I will get to that real world true story as well. There were probably a hundred times in which MJ saved my life by waking me up. There are a lot of fucked up pieces to this story. It made my cry to write some of this as I was coming to some of the points in the story. But just to add to the fuckedupness, one of the times MJ woke me up during a nod out session with the girl, the girl had overdosed and was about to die. Well with MaryJane waking me up I was able to use Narcan and save her life. Everyone should be carrying Narcan. Everyone. You never know when you will come across someone who is overdosing. Could just save a life.I felt guilty everyday for a long time for not saving MaryJane. She was my everything, and I had got her before I had started doing heroin, during a time that was much better. She was the last part of all the good I had before heroin, and the girl took her from me because of her own insecurities about a dog. Not being able to save MaryJane is one of the factors that have gone into why I wanted to share. After not saving MJ contributed to extra years of self destructive behavior. Finally being able to forgive myself for what happened to MJ and realise I was very sick and really just did not know was huge in me finally being able to no longer use that as a reason to use. Always had many other reasons to use but eliminating some definitely does not hurt.