I got a letter in the mail the other day and it’s enough to make your jaw drop. So fascinating was this missive that I carried it around in a coat pocket for a day or two while deciding what to do with it.

Then there was a big house fire to cover and I fell in a snowbank. There was some downtown action later in the evening and I got stuck in a downpour. I stepped in a dozen puddles and wiped out a few times.

By the end of the night, I was drenched through and through. The letter in my pocket was soggy and torn. Some of the words had faded away and sentences were dripping off the page.

That’s a hell of a way to treat the diary of a madman.

I don’t believe the letter writer would mind me referring to it that way. In the very first line, he explains that this is a diatribe from the other side of sanity. It doesn’t take long for him to convince me.

The writer confesses to murderous thoughts. He admits to fantasies so dark the mere utterance of them in public might get him dragged away. These are ideas from the tomb of a man’s mind.

They say some of the world’s most notorious killers were artistic souls. A few were skilled painters. Many left behind diaries or wrote letters with astounding brilliance. The link between intellect and insanity remains unclear, but there are a few clues in people like this.

This anonymous letter-writer relates what he knows and what he knows is the ugliness of his mind. He writes beautifully of sinister things.

He describes the central nervous system as “the eel using your spine as its domain.” He describes the light of his insanity as dim, not dark. His thoughts are heavy with weight and color.

These are the literary fireworks of someone who has studied his troubled thoughts and impulses at length.

Mostly though, the writer clearly and methodically describes the slaughter of strangers and the horrific end he plans for himself. The majority of it is too graphic and profanity-laced to put down here.

Maybe the act of writing the letter is a catharsis of sorts. Maybe when he has these bouts of madness, expressing his thoughts is a substitute for acting on them.

He plainly states that insanity is not his true state of mind, only a grim place that he visits – or is visited by – when the wrong balance of chemicals works in his body.

But still, I can’t help thinking about all the news stories we’ve heard from all over the world. Without foreshadowing, a man walks into his place of work and guns down everyone in his path. A seemingly happy mother gives her children a bath and sings to them as she holds their heads under the water. Your average Joe, a Little League coach and churchgoer, is found to be the molester and killer of kids he has buried in his basement.

A classic line is frequently muttered by a neighbor or a co-worker or a loved one. “He was a quiet man, kept to himself. Never bothered anybody.”

And hey, it may be true. Which goes to show how much we know about the person living next to us. Or the people we car-pool with. Or that guy who sits in the cubicle across the hall.

Walk into any crowded place and try to figure out which people are having lunatic thoughts. It may be obvious or it may be that sharp-dressed fellow whistling a happy tune and buying flowers. That may be just the guy who harbors rancid fantasies and writes about them until writing is not enough.

The man who wrote this letter has written me before but he is still anonymous to me. I asked around but no one seems to know who he is.

He has written me since, too. The more recent missive was calm and reflective and beautifully written. Not one mention of homicidal thoughts. My anonymous pen pal is feeling better.

You have to fear a man like the letter writer and feel sorry for him all at once. He hasn’t caused any harm yet, maybe, but he recognizes his potential. He asserts that outside influences are acting on his psyche but feels he may one day find sanity beyond his reach.

I have a letter detailing his madness, but the letter is torn and tattered. A lot of it is no longer legible. But I think one of his final lines might summarize how he has come to feel about his mental condition.

“The devil enjoys his job,” he writes. “And he does it well.”



Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.

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