Betty’s Ring

Betty’s Ring

By: Christopher Hunter

To whom it may concern:

The purpose of this this letter is convince you to reopen my case, in which I have been found guilty of the most heinous crimes. To my knowledge this case is entirely unique and therefore no precedent exists on file. However, I’m positive that evidence – which can only be found if we explore realms beyond traditional investigation procedure – exists which will prove my innocence.

My life changed the moment Troy proposed to me. Not in the best of ways, but I suppose I’ll get to that in a bit. Although we had only been together for a year, we were already living together, I wasn’t getting younger and we were in love. Troy listened to me. He knew what I liked and disliked. So I wasn’t surprised when he told me that he bought the engagement ring at auction after I’d said yes.

He remembered a conversation we had when we first started going out. We would go to this jazz bar in Manhattan. Smoke replaced air in this authentic albeit stuffy joint. Velvet curtains adorned the walls to provide a dark, romantic environment. I told him about my first marriage, how I made my husband return a fancy ring that he got custom made for our wedding because the company that made it had ties to blood diamonds. I worked in human rights advocacy, and I couldn’t bear wearing a sign of hypocrisy on my ring finger for the rest of my life. It didn’t really matter, though, because the marriage quickly fell apart; but I digress.

So Troy bought me an antique engagement ring that had sapphires instead of diamonds and I was thrilled. Inside a Latin phrase read “abyssus abyssmum invocat” – which translates to “hell calls hell; one mistep leads to another”. I interpreted this as an indication of the commitment that marriage involves. That breaking trust with your partner causes a chain of poor decision making and ruins relationships.

I rushed to my parent’s apartment in Queens to tell them the good news. Troy had surprised me by renting a cottage in the Hamptons for the weekend to celebrate; it was getting dark and I didn’t have much time until we were to set off. I was sure that they were going to be happy. They loved Troy, like everybody who knew him did. His empathy and sense of humour were infectious.  One night, for example, I asked him to pick up some fast food for me after a hard day of work. When I got home he had prepared me seared salmon. He called it a fish filet, insisted that he picked it up from McDonald’s, and we had a beautiful dinner and evening. He’d pull that kind of shit all the time.

Once I got back to our apartment I took the ring off and hopped into the shower. I couldn’t remember how my parents reacted – or the encounter at all, for that matter – but I blamed this on a surge of adrenaline. We were in such a rush to head off that I left the ring at home. Troy didn’t care because my commitment was enough to him.

When we didn’t hear from my parents that weekend we assumed that they were just giving us space so we could properly celebrate. It wasn’t until we got back to the city that we learned their insidious fate. They weren’t answering my sister’s phone calls, weren’t opening the door of their apartment, and nobody else had heard from them for 24 hours, so she reported them missing to the police.

Troy and I decided to postpone announcing the engagement to the rest of our friends and family until the investigation resulted in something. My sister didn’t know about it – we were never close so I didn’t think of calling her after the fact. But I knew that it meant when I visited them to tell them the good news I was probably the last person to see them. Terrified of the potential repercussions, Troy and I didn’t tell the police that I saw them the past Friday evening.

Two days later their bodies were found, hidden and mutilated, in Central Park. Honestly my relationship with Troy is the only thing that prevented me from killing myself that day. Distraught and utterly heart-broken, that night I put my engagement ring on for the first time since Troy’s proposal. The investigation had resulted in something, I figured, and I wasn’t going to let this tragedy ruin the best thing that ever happened to me.

I woke up in a bloody mess. Beside me Troy was lifeless and our bedroom was in disarray. The room permeated with the smell of flesh and sweat. Horrified, I immediately called 911, hoping that somehow the paramedics would be able to revive him. It didn’t cross my mind that I could be involved in this – that I killed my husband-to-be. Inevitably the police arrested me right then and there, found evidence irrevocably against me, traced DNA back to my parents’ dead bodies, and incarcerated me.

The first and only woman to approach me in the prison yard was old. I thought, since it seemed as though she’d been here forever, that she might provide me with advice. Perhaps I had found a friend when it was most needed.

Instead I found myself mocked by the most abhorrent woman imaginable. As she approached, I noticed a condescendingly defiant look in her eyes. She admitted to a string of killings in the ‘70s. Smiling, she stated that murder was the only thing that brought her joy. She was a psychopath in its purest form. She went on, and to paraphrase, she said:

“Once the police found me I wasn’t disappointed by my loss of freedom. Rather, I was upset that my victims would be limited to the oppressed behind the confines of prison walls. An unholy force, who I believe to be the devil himself, approached me in the form of a guard. He said that I could take the spirit of anyone who wore something dear to me and control their actions in exchange for eternal damnation. I knew I was going to hell anyway, and to be honest I rather look forward to it.”

Passing her off as delusional, I started to walk away. She uttered the phrase, “abyssus abyssmum invocat.”

I know that I could be passed off as crazy, but I did not kill my parents, or my fiance. The only person I am guilty of murdering is that old lady, who I later learned to be named Dorothy Doss. The purpose of this letter is to convince you, the Judiciary of New York, to revise my case. Specifically, I implore you to explore the history of that ring; I guarantee a pattern of similar crimes have been committed by its owners.

Sincerely yours,

Betty Knight

Word count: 1158

Spam prevention powered by Akismet