‘My college boyfriend ended up behind bars for murder’

His name was Daniel. He was part poet, part musician, and a Hermann Hesse advocate. It’s hard to believe that such a soft-spoken person could also commit a gruesome murder.

It’s the stuff movies are made of.

It was 1969, when the Vietnam War was in full swing. Drugs and sex were rampant, and the boundaries were loose. I gladly participated.

I met Daniel the night of my prom. My date was a science nerd who was more than happy to have any girl to escort. After the dance, a bunch of us went to Leo Carrillo Beach in Malibu to spend the night. Daniel was among us.

I was attracted to him instantly because he was the opposite of the athletic guys I’d been dating. Daniel was lithe, soft-spoken, wrote poetry and played a bamboo flute.

The six of us had been up most of the night, but once sunrise winked over the horizon, I saw Daniel meditating by the shoreline. In the morning sunlight, his thick crop of wavy black hair shimmered like a halo. His swarthy looks were punctuated by a demure smile.

I dismissed my boring date who was still asleep, and plopped down on the sand beside Daniel. He began quoting from Siddhartha. I was hooked.

I was a poet at the time and so was Daniel. We did readings at the local library and listened to folk music. Little did I know that he was also mentally ill.

I didn’t think too much of it when he confided that he had once pulled a knife on his girlfriend. I thought if I could give him a safe harbour and some understanding, he would feel balanced again.

My mother did not take it well when I continued to see him, but her hands were full trying to manage the rest of the family problems. My dad had been bipolar, and I’m sure the memories of this challenge were foremost in her mind.

Perhaps she thought I would outgrow him or get distracted by some of the other fellows in school. But it was Daniel that I wanted.

I remember getting high with him, and taking some sort of a horse tranquilizer. I think they called it angel dust. While I was in the bathroom, I looked at the wall heater. It looked like Medusa‘s snakes were crawling through the heater toward me.

I’d never taken a hallucinogenic before, so when I started to freak out, all I could do was crawl inside his arms and hope that everything would pass.

I continued to see Daniel occasionally when I was up at the University of California Santa Barbara for college. He invited me to visit him when I came back down on my spring break, but I never took him up on it.

A few weeks later I heard that he had killed his friend’s mother with a fireplace tool when he was sleuthing for drugs in their house.

My dorm phone rang. It was one of my high school friends.

“Did you hear Daniel’s been arrested?”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, he killed Joe’s mother.”

The details were explained, and I hung up the phone. I couldn’t believe it. Daniel? The prophet? The pacifist? Mr Meditation?

Apparently he was high when he was looking for more drugs and he must’ve panicked. Gruesome images of the stabbing flooded my imagination. It could have been me. I could have joined him for that tequila sunrise and been the victim of an assault.

A few months later, several of us visited him in at Atascadero State Hospital, an all-male, maximum-security facility that houses mentally ill convicts who have been committed to psychiatric facilities by the California’s courts.

Behind the window, he seemed calm and collected like I remembered him, not the horrendous murderer depicted in the papers.

Visiting him brought back memories of my father residing in Camarillo for his bipolar disorder. I remembered hearing stories about my dad’s shock treatments, and seeing Daniel behind that thick glass with a black telephone in his hand made me wonder what sorts of treatment he might have to endure. Over time, I forgot about him and got on with my life.

I finally got wind that Daniel’s 30-year sentence was completed. He tried to contact me through my mum after his release to see if we might want to get together. Although I was curious to see him, the reality of it filled me with dread. Does mental illness ever really go away? Or does it simply linger in the closet like a thief in the dark?

I didn’t want to re-visit that time period. I was no longer that impressionable teenager, who coveted every phrase he delivered. I had put that part of my past behind me. I was also nervous that he might do something to harm me, despite having served his sentence.

I wish I could’ve been a bit more open-minded, but the memories of that slaughter were far too vivid.

I eventually found Daniel on the internet. A few details came up about his release. He had changed his name and was now living a peaceful existence in Santa Fe making indie films and creating meditative music.

I hope he is happy and has found a way to rebuild his life. But I also worry that I might run into him one day and fear the worst.