A Fever in the Heart: And Other True Cases (53 page)

They wanted to have children. Susan was happy being married to Carl, and she believed that he was happy. Still, his drawings were filled with images of death. One was a black-and-white sketch of thirteen men and one woman, all of them hanging from nooses, their hands tied behind them. In July of 1981, Susan and Carl Harp had their fir stand only conjugal visit. He had been returned to Walla Walla from San Quentin.

They were allowed to have some privacy in one of the trailers that the Washington State Penitentiary maintains so that married prisoners can be with their wives. The two sat in the kitchen and stared at one another.

"We almost didn't know how to act after all these years of no contact and no privacy," Susan Harp told Seattle Times reporter Erik Lacitis.

"(We) sat around and laughed, just acting silly." And then they made love.

Susan Harp remembers her hours in a trailer behind the walls of the prison in Walla Walla as very romantic. She says Carl wrote to her about his memories of that time. "He was so enthused about the next visit," she said. "I love you, Wife, in case you didn't know that.... Just think, by this time tomorrow if all had worked out, where we would be." They were to have had a second conjugal visit, but there was a lock down at the prison and all such visits were cancelled. "Everything is going to be fine, you watch and see, and our love is going to grow and grow. Think ONLY positive, Susan. .."

There was never another visit. At 6:42 P.M. on September 5, 1981, when a guard brought Carl Harp's evening meal, he found him with his wrists slashed, slumped on the floor with a television cable cord around his neck. The other end of the cord was tied to a clothes hook on the cell wall. It took four months for Carl Harp's death certificate to be entered into the Vital Records of Washington. Interestingly, his occupation was given as "self-employed artist." On the line where cause of death was to be specified, the Walla Walla County coroner listed "asphyxiation and strangulation." Under "Accidental?"

"Suicide?"

"Homicide?" or "Undetermined?" he chose the latter.

Carl Harp had written to his attorneys that a sympathetic guard had warned him that there was a "contract" out on his life because he was not wanted in the prison. But he had told another attorney that he was "ill with mental exhaustion. I am locked in my cell twenty-three hours a day and when I lie down, I fall into a coma. My whole being is tired."

His widow believed that he had been murdered.

But there was no indication on autopsy that someone had strangled Carl Harp and arranged his cell to make his death look like a suicide. The injuries to his neck were commensurate with death by hanging.

The cuts on his arms were not deep enough to cause death. The suicide note was in his handwriting: "I did myself so blame no one for any reason at all." There was, however, a shredded note in the commode in his cell. Although it was pieced together by authorities, its contents were never released to the media. An enigma he lived, and an enigma Carl Harp died. Detectives and medical examiners know how easy it is to hang oneself, and that it is not necessary for a body to drop from a considerable height. They have seen people sitting under tables who have merely leaned against a rope and died. Carl Harp could have stood up if he had chosen to do so. Perhaps he did not choose to stand up and take the cable off the clothes hook. Perhaps the image of Abraham Saltzman in his gunsight came to haunt Harp in his prison cell. And perhaps he was murdered. He had annoyed the prison administration and he wasn't much loved by his fellow prisoners. No one will ever really know how Carl Harp died. It is almost as difficult to choose which of two reflections of the mirror image killers was the true leader, the true madman. Was it Carl Harp? Or was it James Ruzicka? When they were separated, they simply went along their own killing and raping paths. And, in the end, could not they both have been considered "madmen"? Note: Chuck Wright has never forgotten the two "Troy Asins." One is locked away, perhaps forever. The other has been dead for fifteen years. When the unclaimed possessions of Carl Harp were gathered up for disposal, Wright saw a drawing that intrigued him. It is one of the hundreds of sketches Carl Harp did. This sketch (reproduced in the picture section) is entitled "Family Tree, 12110/74" and signed "Carl Harp Asin". (Wright would like to hear critiques of' family Tree" from mental health professionals, artists, and laymen. There may be subtleties, symbolism, and clues in this drawing that no one has yet detected. Those who have comments are asked to contact Chuck Wright, Washington State Department of Corrections, Suite 100, 8625 Evergreen Way, Everett, Washington, 982082620 ) the end.