Some closure, I guess.

Jonathan Beiderbeck was sentenced today. My Aunt just called me to let me know how it went.

He was given the maximum sentance available, 50 years. 10 years are suspended. This means Beiderbeck
will serve 40 years in prison and be on parole for 10 years. Alaska state law allows time off for good behavior, up to 1/3 of the sentence. 2/3 of 40 years is 26.8. This is the minimum time he will serve before parole, if he earns every possible day for good behavior.

I’m not entirely certain how I feel about it, my aunt noted that he could be incarcarated until he’s 61. The first thought I had when she made that observation was of James Whitmore’s character, Brooks, in The Shawshank Redemption. (excellent movie BTW)

Spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie – I’m going to be talking a bit about the plot.
[Spoilers] Okay so I lied, I haven’t collected all my thoughts about this yet – I’ll update the post later after I’ve had some more time to think. I need to get back in the lab. Sorry for the tease. [/Spoilers]

I’m going to keep an eye on the news-miner website to see if a story gets posted. If it does, I’ll archive it in a post (like I did last year.)

Edited to correct some of the sentencing details.

Edited on May 31st 2004, 13:08 by Hooloovoo

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Robert

Robert Belknap has been writing online sporadically since 2001. See the colophon for more details.

10 thoughts on “Some closure, I guess.”

  1. I have a question, and I’m not sure how to ask it, so I figure as it has something loosely to do with you and your dad, I’ll comment it here…feel free to delete it or what have you.

    Yesterday my sisters and dad went to the place they scattered my mom’s ashes. Our contingent was supposed to go but got held up at the doctor’s. After, we all met up for dinner, and my sister related that they’d had a good afternoon, and had ‘caught mom up on all the goings on’. This statement really frustrated me. For one, I talk to my mom all the time, I don’t feel a need to go to her ‘scatter site’ to tell her stuff. Maybe I’d feel differently if a) I’d been able to go to the original scattering (I was in LA with Eli), or b) it was an actual ‘marked’ place like a headstone instead of some pretty plantlife near a beach. I also feel that my sis is making a whole dramatic thing out of it, with the annual (and sometimes more often) pilgrimage to the scatter site.

    I was wondering if you had any insight/input. Do you still ‘talk’ to your dad? For me, I talk or think and just assume my mom knows what’s going on, and don’t feel a need to go to a special place to do it. I am trying to be more supportive of my sister and her needs regarding my mom, but it seems like she’s making a big deal out of it to get attention. (That’s part of the reason I’m doing this on your blog instead of my own…she reads mine and would be highly offended, and I doubt she reads yours–no offense!)

  2. to participate in the thread-jack, lexi, my mother talks to her mother all the time. I’m pretty sure she does it in her head (or at least under her breath; my mother is always muttering around but she doesn’t actually “talk to herself”). But I know that, when she can get down to the gravesite in NM, she likes to visit. I think it’s kinda like talking to God as you go around your daily life and talking to God when you’re in chuch – He can hear you anywhere, but in some places it’s easier to feel that you’re being heard.

  3. I didn’t do much talking to my dad the last few years he was alive. The occasional birthday and father’s day phone calls, but that was about it. I do still occasionally talk to him, like the night we thought something might seriously be wrong early on the pregnancy, and I asked him to look out for duckling.

    I do think about him often, (more and more now that I’m going to be a father myself,) but I don’t do much talking. When I do, I don’t feel compelled to travel to his scatter site, (soon to be sites – ‘nother story.) Of course, the fact that the primary site is in AK probably has something to do with it.

    People deal with grief in different ways. Jenny has a friend who died in Junior High. We usually find ourselves in Petaluma near her birthday, so we go to the cemetary and Jenny spends some time with her.

    In the end, your sister’s trip to the beach may not be an attention getting thing. It may really just be how she feels she can best connect with your mother. Ritual can be a very powerful tool, whether it consists of going to a particular place, or just setting some time aside daily to say hello and talk about what’s going on.

    If what’s bothering you is that her ritual, (making a yearly trip to the scatter site to ‘[catch] mom up on all the goings on’) makes you feel that she’s belittling your’s, (talking to her when you need, or want, to regardless of time and location,) let her know that. Point out that she doesn’t need catch mom up on the goings on in your life – you already do that. Just be careful not to make her feel that you are belittling her ritual when you do so.

    Her trips to the beach to talk to your mother are probably just as important to your sister, as your daily (weekly?) talks with your mother are to you. Remember that.

  4. I imagine even this amount of closure would be good.

    I’m interested to hear what you have to say in relation to Shawshank. (I love that movie.)

  5. I’m not sure. I’m conflicted. That’s the main reason there’s currently nothing behind the spoilers tag. I’m still trying to work out my thoughts/feelings on the matter.

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