Injustice For The Sake Of Justice
Authored By: Bradley Chapline
Page Five
2003 - revised 2022
Authored By: Bradley Chapline
Page Five
2003 - revised 2022
Mike took me to the bus station in Baltimore to get me out of town as quickly as possible. I had an alias Marine identification card. I utilized this card to purchase my bus ticket back to North Carolina. When I got back to my unit at Camp Lejeune I paid the on-duty non-commissioned officer from two days ago $50.00 to check me in from leave early. I paid the present on-duty sergeant $40.00 to allow this entry to be made. This was all covered on a three day weekend so nobody in authority would be able to tell whether or not this entry was false. I strongly believed I had covered all possible bases. I discovered the following Wednesday that the Baltimore City police had telephoned my commanding officer to inquire as to my whereabouts during the night of the shooting. My commanding officer verified through not only the unit log book, but also my leave papers that I was on the base during the night of this incident at Debbie’s residence. I was cleared. I then questioned my commanding officer, “Sir, you haven’t told the most important thing. Was anybody hurt?” My commanding officer anwered, “No, thank God. No one was hurt.” I could not fucking believe it. How the hell did I miss? It wasn’t until many years later that Mike’s wife told me during a private conversation just between the two of us that Mike had loaded blanks in the two 30/30 Winchesters before he took the weapons to the truck. The other extra rounds we had were live. I thought, “I knew I should have loaded that fucking weapon myself.” I pondered how this could have been true. I know I heard the window shatter after my first shot.
It was now early December 1975. I had once again just returned from overseas duty. I had experienced some very traumatic events during my last tour of military duty. I was fed up with the Marine Corps. I wanted to go home somehow. Debbie and I had discussed while I was overseas, through letters, about getting back together and trying to make our relationship work this time. I had planned on going AWOL from the Marine Corps and never coming back. I paid a bribe to my unit’s payroll clerk to keep me off the rolls of unauthorized absence and deserter status for at least two months. I had taken almost my entire pay check out in military allotments. I knew now I had a good lead on my pay while I was in an unauthorized status. I thought, “Good. Nothing the Corps can do about this.” I packed up all my gear that I wanted to take with me for what I intended to be my final trip home to Baltimore.
I went to live with Debbie at the East Gough Street residence. Within the first week of being home I had landed a government scale job. It was top pay. I thought, “Isn’t this great?! I’m AWOL from the Marine Corps and still getting my full pay and working on a government scale job at the same time, getting top notch hourly wages.” Finally, I was fucking the government. It didn’t get any better than this. But, this was short-lived.
I could not stand having sex with Debbie because I knew she had been with so many other men while we were married. But, I was glad to be around Michael. I then found some mail that was addressed to a man named Gary Blankenship at the East Gough Street home. I had become friends with the people who lived on the first floor of this row house. They told me that Debbie had just had Gary Blankenship move out prior to my arrival. I couldn’t believe that I was stupid enough to let her set me up again. This time I had to ensure that I finished Debbie off. I told Debbie that I wanted to go out and look at cars. I said we were going to a third rate used car dealership in Essex. I asked if I could test drive a six year old Pontiac Grand Prix. The salesman looked akin to an old “grease ball” who had been whacked out on drugs for years. He was definitely a burn-out. He asked to see my driver’s license. I still did not have a valid license. But, I provided him with my military license. I told this salesman that this license was issued by the federal government and, therefore, it was valid in all fifty states. The idiot fell for it. I figured I could now blow Debbie up in a vehicle I was test driving. Without a license, I foolishly figured it would be hard for the authorities to prove anything against me. I got into the Grand Prix and started it up. The gas gauge did not move off empty. I then reached over to the passenger door and took the burglar-proof lock off the inside of the door. This passenger side door was locked. I then picked up Debbie. I got out of the driver’s side and told Debbie she would have to climb over my seat to the passenger seat because the passenger door was inoperable. We finally got set and took off down the road. We got approximately three miles away from the car dealership when the Grand Prix stopped running. It was out of gasoline. It was extremely cold out this day with light snow flurries coming down. I told Debbie to once again climb over the driver’s side seat and get out of the car. We then walked approximately two and three-quarters miles to the nearest gas station. During our walk enroute to this station, I took the gas cap key off the ring and dropped it to the ground without Debbie’s knowledge. Upon our arrival at the gas station I bought a gallon of gas and put it into an old empty oil can. Debbie and I began our walk back to the car. She did not have a decent winter coat or gloves on. Debbie was suffering out in this weather. I was privately enjoying this. I thought, “It won’t be long now before she will get more heat than she can handle.”
Upon our arrival back at the stranded Grand Prix I told Debbie to once again climb across the driver’s seat to the passenger’s side. As I helped Debbie’s fat ass get across the inside of the vehicle I quietly tore off the burglar-proof lock on the driver’s door. I believed the driver’s door was now in a permanent locked position. I closed the door. Debbie was now effectively locked in the vehicle and her only way out was for me to key the door open or smash out one of the windows. I told Debbie that there was a gas cap lock on the tank and that I didn’t have a key to it. I then told Debbie I would have to open up the hood of the car and take off the air filter and pour the gas directly down the carburetor. Snickering, I told Debbie not to worry, “Just stay in the car and try to keep warm.” I poured about half of the gas down the carburetor and the rest I just dumped over the engine. I keyed the driver side door open and then keyed it back into the locked position. I put the key in the ignition and turned the engine over. Of course, my driver side door I had cracked. I’m thinking, “Come on, you bastard Grand Prix, catch fire!!! Let’s burn this bitch to a crisp!!!” I turned the engine over again and again and kept turning it over. Suddenly, finally, the engine caught on fire. I left the key in the ignition and got out of the driver’s side and closed the door. “Yeah,” I thought, “the bitch is locked in and this baby is burning!!!” People were beginning to stop and watch the excitement. I thought, “Christ sake, Bradley, you better make this look good.” I began screaming at Debbie, “Get the fuck out of the car!!! Get the fuck out of the car!!!” Acting like I was attempting to yank the passenger's side door open, I was actually making sure this door was locked. Debbie was screaming with terrible fright in her eyes as the black smoke just poured out from underneath of this vehicle with flames shooting out from the hood at the same time. “Yes,” I thought, “Debbie is locked into this inferno.” Suddenly I yell, “Goddammit!!!” The fucking passenger door has opened and Debbie lunged from the car. I couldn’t fucking believe it!!! I thought, “This has to be the luckiest bitch on the face of the Earth.” By this time the entire car is mostly engulfed in flames. I hear sirens in the distance. Then, as my luck would have it, an old pickup truck stopped to render assistance. A young, well-built man gets out of the truck with a big fire extinguisher and puts out the flames that were spreading across the Grand Prix. I thought, “Swell. This car fucked me over and now some guy is playing hero.” I thought, “At least the goddamned car could have burnt to the ground.” Debbie was extremely upset and appeared to be suffering from a minor smoke inhalation. She left with the driver of the pickup truck. I walked back to the car dealership. I pondered if I was ever going to get this bitch who was ruining my life. Upon reaching the dealership, the old burned-out salesman confronted me and asked, “Where is the Grand Prix?” I said to him, “Did you hear those fire engines blaring back a while ago?” He said that he did. I informed him of the following, “That was your fucking piece of shit car burning! You’ll find it some miles down the road now in a charcoal type color.” I started to walk off the dealership lot. This salesman actually had the nerve to ask me if I was interested in any other cars on the lot! I just ignored him, walking off the lot shaking my head in disgust.
I arrived back at the Gough Street row house later on that evening. Debbie accused me of trying to kill her. I didn’t say anything. Debbie told me to get my stuff and leave. I then called Mike Williams and asked him to drive over and get me in his truck. Mike told me that he was leaving in the morning driving a crane to New York to work on a two week job up there for his dad’s business. He asked me if I would drive the flatbed truck with the crane’s boom on it. I said that I would. When I had returned back to Baltimore with Mike in the late part of December, I went directly back to the East Gough Street row house to see what this guy named Gary Blankenship was all about. I still had the key to this residence. I walked in the entry way and made my way up to the second floor hallway. Gary Blankenship came into the hallway to meet me. He was about 5’11” and weighed approximately 170 lbs. He politely asked me what I wanted. I told Blankenship, “This is my fucking house, punk. I’m not going to explain anything to you.”