Sharon Crutchmer Willetts

I conducted this interview on the evening of April 1. I followed the procedure I had planned on using for all the interviews, to explain first that I was taping these at Michael's request, and that everything said was strictly confidential and would never be made public without later permission.

I did know Sharon Crutchmer quite well in high school, and I think it is necessary for me to provide some background on those occasions when I am well acquainted with the person I'm talking to, so that the reader will understand why some of the interviews are rather more formal than others and can also forgive those times I may appear to ask very direct or possibly harsh questions. I'm sure we all realize we talk differently to people we have known than to strangers, so I shall try to make the circumstances clear in each instance.

I used to see a lot of Sharon, because I saw a lot of Michael. They were a very common Yuba City phenomenon - the only serious romance in each others' lives. I don't know when they first met, but I'm sure it was well before I knew either of them. It was difficult to think of one without the other. They must have had the same problem themselves, because when they graduated they wanted to get married right away. The obstacle, though, was Michael had been a National Merit Scholarship finalist and had won a major grant, which he wanted to use to go to Reed College in Oregon. Sharon, the oldest of three girls, was pressured pretty heavily by her widowed mother to stay in Yuba City and help the family with their fairly sizeable farm. Mrs. Crutchmer had no objection to Michael as a future son-in-law, which itself was rather fair of her, since Michael was far from your usual Yuba City type. But she didn't think Sharon should follow him off to college.

I remember this kind of thing happening a lot, situations where romances were broken up because one of the kids had close ties to the town and the other had quite compelling motivation for wanting to leave. You'd expect such young couples to go their separate ways, however regretfully and painfully, but it's hard to explain the intensity of one of these relationships. I can sympathize because I went through a similar thing, although mine broke off when I did move away and stayed broken off. Small towns bring young people close to each other. There's not a lot to distract you from a close involvement, and pretty quickly you're so bound up in it that you can't remember when you weren't half of a couple. This is usually by the time you're a high school sophomore. There's be some break-ups over one thing or another, though a lot fewer than you'd think. For many, that would be it.

Michael did go to Reed. I heard that he and Sharon were both so miserable he dropped out after one semester, came back, and enrolled in Yuba College. That was a dumb thing to do, and his parents were livid, but I doubt whether he regretted it one bit at the time. Like I said, maybe you have to be from here to understand.

It wasn't long after, from moving around and not wanting to look back myself, that I got pretty well out of contact I've talked about this already, so there's no point in covering it again. Not until the other day when Michael mentioned his "ex-wife" did I know they had been divorced. Even a newspaper story I had read referred to her simply by her married name, in connection with reporting on her being his attempted alibi, so I naturally assumed they were still married Divorces are hardly big news anymore, but I must say this one managed to catch me by surprise.

Sharon lives on the same farm she always used to, as Michael had said. She introduced me to their son Alex, and looking at the size of this twelve year old was a fast way of realizing how long it had been since I was last here. The whole thing was more than a little depressing.

I always expect people I haven't seen for a long time to look just the same. I guess when you're in your early thirties you're still not old enough for people your own age to look tremendously different from a time ten or fifteen years earlier. I say this only because Sharon really looked a different persona much more so than Michael, She wasn't in high school anymore. She likely had similar thoughts seeing me I was hoping I'd quickly get used to this impression of time passing as I saw other people. It wasn't a pleasant experience being reminded how much older I was.

So Sharon had me sit down, and she sat across from me, and it was very hard to say anything. Her eyes looked dark and recessed, as if they were in shadow, even though the room was brightly lit. I had told her on the phone what I was going to do, so I got the tape recorder out right away and turned it on. I'm glad I did. It kept me from sitting there and becoming even more depressed. She spoke first.

A: If you only knew how many of those machines I've seen since this thing started. I feel like I can't say a word that someone won't be playing back later and trying to figure out.

Q: I'm sorry to put another one in front of you, and I wish I was here to talk about other things.

A: Oh, that's OK. It's nice to see a friendly face I used to know. Most people from here haven't had much to do with me lately, and about the only other ones who do want to talk come with those things, or some kind of pad of paper to write on.

Q: I was surprised to hear that you and Michael had been divorced.

A: Steve, I am so past surprising anymore, I can't tell you. I'd be surprised if nothing happened to surprise me.

Q: I'm not trying to dredge up the story of your life since high school, but I'd really like to find out enough to figure what's going on now. I know you must still be involved with Michael, especially if you say he was with you the morning of the killings.

A: I guess I might as well start there. I've told this damn story so many times now and everybody's tried to make me say I made it up, so I'll tell it to you, and you can believe me or not. I really don't give a shit anymore. I'm not Sharon Willetts, I'm "Michael's alibi". That's all I get called. Michael was here that morning seeing Alex. He comes here a lot to see Alex, and I know that was one of the times.

Q: I guess it wouldn't do me any good to ask you if you're sure that's the truth.

A: You're right.

Q: About what?

A: It wouldn't do you any good.

Q: And I guess it wouldn't help if I asked whether you thought Michael had been involved in the killings.

A: Right again.

Q: If you're certain Michael was here, why do you think he was arrested?

A: You ought to ask that to the police or the FBI or whoever it was who arrested him. I think they have him because they needed to find somebody. Michael was around here and handy, and he looks like the kind of guy who might have done it. You know what I mean from what the papers say. They bring up the trouble he had with the Draft Board, the trouble he's had getting settled into what he's doing with his life, the trouble of our marriage breaking up. Calling him a disturbed personality with a grudge makes those people on TV real happy. They don't seem to care if he did have a part in it or not. It's enough for them to say he looks like the kind of guy who would do it. The rest you're supposed to figure out for yourself.

Q: Is he the kind of guy who would do it?

A: Look, I was right there when all that Draft Board stuff happened to him. I know how much he hated them. That doesn't mean he'd try to kill them. If he was that mad, he would have tried it then, not waited way past ten years and then gone after them. Michael isn't like that. He's not a patient person.

Q: I never heard exactly what did happen between him and the Draft Board. There's been some about it in the paper, but I'd like to hear from you what you can remember.

A: There's probably other people who can tell you more exactly, but I remember plenty. He was really horrified by what was happening over there, and he kept telling me there was no way he would ever let himself get drafted. I never heard anybody talk that way, and it got me very scared. I mean, I didn't want him to go to jail or anything. I didn't know what they would do to him. I could only think of pictures I had seen in the paper about draft dodgers, and them going off to Canada or Sweden, but that was something hippies did, not anybody from around here. No one talked like that. No one at all. I was worried that Mike was afraid for me and the baby, and it was keeping him from doing what was right and patriotic. I tried to tell him that.

I don't know if it was certain principles that made him take that turn of mind, or what it was. I think it was more some kind of obsession that grew and grew and grew. Like, he became too fascinated with the people involved instead of with the system. He thought as if it was really people from here who were getting together and making sure he got drafted. He never quite related to it being the government, I don't think. That was a big mistake.

He did try to get Conscientious Objector status, but already it was more a chance for him to see them face to face. It wasn't like he really wanted to be a conscientious objector. He wanted to look them straight in the eye and see what they were like. He never thought about himself at all.

Q: Do you know what happened?

A: Not really. He never told me in any detail. All I know is he made some kind of scene and threatened them pretty good. Enough to have it written into his record. Even without him injuring himself, there might already have been enough to make them think he was crazy.

Q: Was he?

A: That question's come up a lot, as I said. I really can't answer, because I don't know what it means. If what you're doing is right, I don't know if you can be called crazy. Michael certainly was intense. That I can say. He always took things seriously. He was like that when you knew him too.

Q: What bothers me is when I talked to him the other day and now that I'm talking to you, most of what I hear makes me think he must have done it. Right or wrong, justified or not, it sounds like he was capable. It's astonishing. Five bloody murders in one hour. How could he think he was superior to them and still do that?

A: I'll tell you the same thing I've told everybody. He was here with me when those killings happened. You'll just have to work it out for yourself how you feel about it. It doesn't matter to me anymore whether people think he did it or not. His life, my life, will always be connected to this horrible event. There's nothing we can ever do in our lives which will separate us from it. The stain will be on us our whole lives, and it will be on Alex, and for a long time after it will never go away. Knowing for sure who did it doesn't answer anything, so I wish you wouldn't keep asking that question.

Q: I'm sorry. I'm trying to be helpful. I'm here because Michael asked me.

A: It sounded to me like you were enjoying asking about these things a little too much. You're doing this for yourself, not for Michael.

Q: Is there anything about Michael that you can tell me that would help me to understand his situation better or make me able to help him?

A. I don't know why he asked you to come back here, so I can't really say. You're probably just part of his vanity, somebody to be his historian. If you ask me, he's been written about more than enough. We all have. I know five people have been killed, but how much can people want to keep reading about that. Hasn't it all been said already?

Q: Well, I'll admit to you something I've been afraid to bring up, maybe something I shouldn't say out loud or even think. When I first heard about this, after I got over the shock of it happening here and all, maybe five seconds later the thought came to me how brilliant it was for somebody to come up with this. The planning involved, the imagination, there's something so bold about it. I never thought of mass killings as a work of art, but there's something so stunning about this, it goes beyond death.

A: You're sounding like Michael!

Q: Did he ever talk to you like this?

A: Not about the killings, of course, but he could describe the most gruesome things and make you think they were beautiful. Even when he talked about the war, which he always said he hated, he'd still go over a news report in a way that showed how fascinated he was. That time on television when some South Vietnamese general shot a prisoner in the forehead, Michael talked about that for weeks. Not about how disgusting it was, but going over it again and again in the tiniest detail, so you felt it thrilled him a lot more than he'd admit. He'd describe the look in the prisoner's eyes, the way the general held the gun, the little puff in the air when the bullet hit. It's hard to forget how he'd go on. Like you did just now.

Q: This is all so unreal. Could you ever have imagined when we were in high school that someday we'd be talking about a thing like this?

A: When I was in high school I couldn't imagine anything. That was my problem. I never thought about the future. I didn't want it to happen. I was happy with Michael, happy with my life. This is a nice place. You must think that's still very small-minded, since you left here, but have you been any better off? Is what's out there so far preferable? We were happy for a long time, we both were, Michael and I, and then the baby. It was fun feeling like we were adults, with our own grown-up responsibilities If only Michael didn't let things bother him so much, we could have been really happy.

Q: I hate to ask you this, but what went wrong with your marriage?

A: Michael didn't have it in him to be contented. I don't know what he was after, I never knew. I'd ask him, and he'd understand the question, but all I ever got back for asking it was a funny smile and a lot of silence There were things going on in his head he never talked about with anybody, not even me, especially not me. I love Michael, I always have, but there's only so much of that I could deal with. We kept having bad fights or worse, not talking at all for weeks at a time. I couldn't take it anymore. He moved out, and then he kept coming around because I'd call him up, and he'd want to see me and Alex, and he'd come over and it would be nice, but I was glad I didn't have to spend longer with him. He may be a disturbed person, like everyone says, but there was a lot to disturb him. He could also be wonderful, and while he'll always be the most important man in my life, I finally had to be off on my own. I was losing my identity, starting to think too much like him. He can do that to people. He's influenced me so much all my life. I could see how upset he was. I didn't want to be more like him.

Q: What was making him so upset?

A: I don't like talking about him this way, especially because he's in jail now, mixed up with this horrible thing. I don't see the point in going over it. Anything I would say would come out like it was explaining how he got to be a mass murderer. Little things that set him off before the big explosion came, I won't-do that to him. You know him yourself. You used to tell me how glad you were that someone like Michael was here in Yuba City in high school when you were, Do you remember that?

Q: Sure. He was such a smart guy, and so funny. He seemed better than this place. There was nothing he couldn't do if he set his mind to it.

A: Yeah. That's what the police are saying.

The interview with Sharon was longer, but I know a catchy ending when I hear it. The rest wouldn't be that interesting anyway, I don't think, just the two of us reminiscing about what Michael used to be like, some of the things we all did together, and how long ago it now seemed. Like I said, nothing very interesting.

I don't want to comment each time after an interview about my opinions on what was said. The whole point of transcribing the interviews as directly and completely as I can is to allow you to find your own significance in the comments of the actual participants. I'm trying not to intrude on their testimony, believe me, though it is certainly a temptation sometimes. Better to leave it all as is, than to stick in my two cents' worth whenever I felt like it. What they have to say is far more important.

I'm a little worried, because this is the first interview about Michael from people close to him, that you not be upset if it's been pretty personal sometimes, I want to assure you that good taste will continue to be exercised, I'm not a vulture buzzing over the flesh of an old friend, feeding off his notoriety. I'm just trying to get at the truth, So please trust me that things won't get out of hand. I do recognize the limits of good taste.