CONFESS

DAWN MCSWEENEY CONFESS

You destroyed your own family, Dawn McSweeney. The truth is the most powerful weapon on earth. You can’t overcome it. You can’t escape it.

When you were rifling through my boxes and cases, Dawn McSweeney, what were you thinking? Did you think that once you had forced me out of my home, I would be so despondent and helpless that I would fade away and die? Surely that is what you hoped. But in spite of all you did and all you put me through, here I am thirteen years later, still fighting for justice, still on your case, still reporting your crimes.

You destroyed your family. Your greed and hatred drove you to lie to your own grandfather when he was sick with cancer. You lied to your grandmother while you pilfered her money and my most precious treasures. Did Ma play right into your game? Did you let her have my grandmother’s dinner ring to placate her? Did you care that she was mentally ill ? You scared her into believing that I was her enemy because you knew that she was upset by my becoming a Christian. You pretended to love your grandmother while you robbed her. Sweet little Goldilocks sucking funny cigarettes under my mother‘s nose. You fooled a sick old woman, but you know that you never fooled me. I was onto you from the day I found your other boyfriend - the one with the baggy shorts - standing in my room among my boxes. I warned Ma, but she was too disturbed to understand what was really happening.

Does it make you proud to write pretty poems about your grandmother when you know that you robbed her and lied to her ? You haven’t escaped, Dawn. The clock is ticking.

Did you lie to your mother too? Does Debbie know that you robbed us? You made her an accomplice. That is how you showed your love for our baby sister, Dawn McSweeney. With her narcolepsy and MS, Debbie was too weak and naïve to stand up to you and your father, Ed McSweeney, and go to the police. You made your own mother an accomplice and turned her against the family that loves her to this very day. She is so intimidated that she went so far as to lie to the CLSC and to the court. But while I was in hospital this summer, your mother confessed to Sheila and me, so we know why she lied to the court.

How much of these crimes involved Ed ? Debbie is terrified of him. She has always been terrified of him. She confesses how scared she is of him and then, she is so scared, that she denies that she has confessed it.

The truth is out there for all the world to see. There is nowhere you can hide. You made your mother so afraid of her family that, with a lump in her breast, she is afraid to go and see a doctor. She risks suffering and death because of your lies and your crimes. You know who the enemy is. Look in your mirror.

Oh, yes, Dawn McSweeney. I am onto you. I know about your pretty poems. Very talented. But Goldilocks, I see right through you. You and your “partners in crime” have done a lot of dirt to try to stop me from telling the world what you have done - hate mail, threats, a court order. But cancer is the biggie, Dawn. Once you have cancer, court orders and hate mail have little impact. Now that I am ill, I am more determined than ever to expose your crimes.

You will never be free until you go to the police and confess and return everything you stole from me and from the family. Wherever you go, I am with you, reminding you of your crimes. Whatever you are doing, I am with you, reminding you of your crimes. There is nowhere you can hide.

I don‘t believe you have a conscience or you would have returned everything to me in March, 1997 when I came to the house begging for my belongings. No, you have no conscience - but you have me, always watching and waiting and telling people what you and your “partners in crime” have done.

The only way you will ever be free of me is when you confess. No matter what happens, I will be on your case. I will be watching and waiting. I will keep on reporting the case to new people every day. I will ensure that even if I die, the case against you and your criminal associates will continue. There is nowhere for you to hide. But you can end it by telling the police what you and your “partners in crime” have done and returning everything you stole from me and from my parents and siblings.

No peace without justice.

Phyllis Carter