SO THAT WAS HIS STORY. He never wrote a word about the day of the murders—my usefulness in helping shape his tale was evidently good only to a point. In any case, by the time Longo completed the “MJ & I Papers,” as he called them, his trial was set to begin, and the crimes themselves would inevitably become the focus of attention.
It was now February of 2003. I’d been in contact with Longo for almost a year. I had written him twenty-three letters, and he had written me twenty-three letters. “I think you know more about me than my parents do,” he’d told me. Yet I knew almost nothing about why his family had been killed. His letters were detailed and poignant and long, but they formed a sort of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, always keeping me intrigued yet never quite reaching a conclusion. Nothing he wrote convinced me of his innocence. Still, I wanted to believe him. I wanted him not to be a murderer.
Maybe that was all he needed. If he could get a jury to feel the same way, perhaps he could nudge this into a form of reasonable doubt. His plan, so far as I could tell, was to use his charm as a defensive gambit. He would demonstrate that he was a bright and sensitive person; a normal, well-adjusted man. And therefore it wasn’t logical that he could have committed crimes that were clearly the work of someone profoundly unhinged.
Longo did confess several misdeeds to me, but every one was weirdly altruistic, at least the way he told it. He lifted money from a camera shop to pay for MaryJane’s engagement ring. He stole a minivan for his wife—rather than, say, a Ferrari for himself. He created counterfeit checks in order to pay his employees. He faked further checks to purchase building supplies that would make the warehouse safer and more comfortable for his family.
These don’t seem the actions of a hard-hearted criminal. They were not vindictive crimes; they weren’t especially cruel. Until the murders, Longo was never accused of a violent act. He didn’t even appear to have a temper. Not once, in all our conversations, did he use a swear word. He didn’t so much as raise his voice. Two of his favorite movies, he said, were Charlotte’s Web (rated G) and The Princess Bride (rated PG). He claimed to have seen Princess Bride twenty times. He said he’d been drunk only a single time.
One woman in his Kingdom Hall in Ypsilanti described Longo as “a thoughtful, giving, helpful person.” Another said he was “generous with his money and his time.” A third said she “trusted him completely.” A fourth said that Longo was “a model for other men” and that she’d overheard several women in the congregation say, “Why can’t my husband be more like Chris Longo?”
Even after I suspected that Longo was using me to audition his testimony, I did not stop corresponding with him. I couldn’t. I was immersed in my writing project; I was captivated by his tale; I was emotionally involved in his life. I did become a little more cautious about what I said to Longo, but I didn’t blame him for testing his story on me. I faulted myself for not realizing it sooner.
And, I have to confess, I genuinely liked Longo. Though just about every aspect of our relationship confounded me, and though I was almost sure he had murdered his family and was lying about his innocence, I couldn’t help it. As with the people in his Kingdom Hall, who still expressed their admiration for Longo even after he’d been arrested for murder, his charisma had worked on me. “I like you in a way that is beyond my control,” I admitted in the last letter I wrote him before the start of his trial.
He may have killed, I thought, but there had to have been a plausible reason, some force that drove him beyond his snapping point. In the course of reading his letters, I came to believe that he really did love his family. “People can be partially bad and partially good,” I wrote, “and I know for a fact that you have a good side.”
I also added, in the letter I sent just prior to his trial, that the connection I shared with Longo felt “deep and profound and important.” It was in no way a normal relationship, I noted, but it was real. “The sadnesses in your life, and the tragedies, and the troubles and difficulties ahead affect me too,” I wrote. I told him that I wished he could erase the last few years of his life and start again. I signed the letter, “Your Friend, Mike.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been quite so touched—or maybe punched would be more appropo, or at least affected—by a letter,” Longo responded. Our relationship, he wrote, had transformed his own life. “I can’t imagine where I’d be right now, mentally & psycologically w/o the writing assignments, your help, & your person. Who would have thought that a phone call, over almost exactly a year ago now, could have transpired & progressed to this breathlessly high point?” He signed the letter, “Your Very Appreciative Friend, Chris.”
Jury selection for State of Oregon v. Christian Michael Longo, case number 01-6441, was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, February 18,2003. Two weeks before, Longo had told me over the phone that something surprising might happen on the very first day—something that would change the nature of the entire trial. He declined to elaborate, and though I speculated wildly, Longo simply repeated, “Just wait and see; wait and see.”
The surprise actually came early. On the afternoon of Thursday, February 13, the Lincoln County district attorney’s office announced that there would be a “plea hearing” in the Longo case the following day. The office released no other information.
I had known for some time that Longo’s legal team, or at least Ken Hadley, was considering a plea bargain. Longo had even mailed me a copy of a letter his lawyers had sent to the district attorney’s office, requesting a meeting to try and settle the case. Longo was careful to reiterate that he was absolutely innocent of the crimes—“I still have an overwhelming desire to be vindicated,” he wrote me.
But, he added, because everyone assumed his guilt (the case, he conceded, was “my word against the DA’s”), the trial’s outcome was preordained, and spending weeks in a courtroom would only prolong the suffering of his relatives, MaryJane’s relatives, and all their past friends. Longo’s parents, in their letter to the Lincoln County district attorney, wrote, “If this case goes to trial it will be like pouring salt in the already incredibly painful wounds.”
Even if he did prove his innocence, Longo noted, “I don’t know that my life would ever be ‘normal’ again.” Therefore, he concluded, he’d gallantly fall on his sword and quell others’ pain by going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. “I do feel an enormous sense of responsibility, in an indirect way, over what happened,” he wrote. “I don’t mind living my life out incarcerated if that would be easiest for everyone else.”
There were two problems with this idea. First, the district attorney’s office had not seemed interested in bargaining. They wanted death. And second, Longo had repeatedly insisted that any agreement could not include his pleading guilty to murder—he wasn’t that noble. Presumably, though, he’d be willing to plead to a lesser charge such as manslaughter. To me, it had seemed there was no chance the two sides would ever agree on anything.
Yet just before his trial was about to start, it appeared as if a deal had actually been made. This should not have come as a surprise; nationwide, most cases in which prosecutors seek the death penalty end in plea bargains. The threat of death is often used specifically to achieve such a result.
I was sure that the prosecution wasn’t going to allow Longo to plead guilty to anything other than murder—the district attorney in Lincoln County is elected, and the public wouldn’t stand for any softness, especially in a case involving children. What shocked me was that Longo might finally be coming clean. After all this time, he’d be confessing to the murder of his family.
Two scenarios seemed feasible. Longo would admit to all the crimes in exchange for life in prison, with or without the possibility of parole. Or he’d change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, and the trial would indeed go on, though in a much altered fashion. I had trouble imagining Longo, whose chief source of pride was his intelligence, agreeing to an insanity defense, but I also couldn’t see anything else fulfilling his oblique hint—that the trial would continue but would be utterly changed.
As it turned out, both my ideas were wrong. Later, when I told Longo I’d thought he might plead insanity, he was insulted. “You know better than that,” he said.