Eric Robert Motis;
A Post-Mortem Biography

Eric was born to loving and devoted parents. They did everything to ensure that he had the best of everything. Both parents worked very hard and, unfortunately, Eric grew up feeling somewhat abandoned. He wanted more time with his parents than their work schedules would permit.

This doesn't reflect badly on the parents, not at all. Everyone who's passed through his teens realizes that youth's fiery emotions are often exaggerated. It's only later in life that we realize, as Eric did before he died, the imperception of adolescence.

Eric was very smart and did quite well in school. His peers considered him a nerd and he became something of an outcast. To overcome being a nerd in teen-society, Eric used his material advantages to attract something which resembled friendships. However, Eric always realized that the relationships were not real or true friendships. The realization only deepened the young man's loneliness, sadness and depression; emotions spiraling out of control in the boy's mind.

It wasn't long before Eric began seeing the world as his vehement enemy. That's when his real rebellion began. Eric began to get into trouble with the law; nothing too serious, but trouble, none the less.

Shortly thereafter, the boy, then 17, resolved to go out on his own. He didn't have the money that he felt he would need to start out with the kind of comfort he had known living with his parents.

Eric admitted to me that he was having a relationship with an "older woman" in his neighborhood. She seemed to Eric to be very affluent, and a scheme was hatched.

Young Eric had made the acquaintance of a man named "Rob." Rob convinced Eric that the boy could get all the money he'd need to start out life on his own if he'd help Rob burglarize the woman's home. It was a foolish and heart-rending decision, a deal made with the Devil. Both Eric and the poor trusting woman were doomed!

Rob not only burglarized the home, he also murdered the people (the woman and her two children) who were in it!

When Eric (who was acting as look-out) realized what had happened, he panicked, took the car that was there and fled to Florida. He admitted to me that that was the second biggest mistake he'd ever made! However, being young and terrified, flight seemed, to the boy, to be the only thing to do. Of course, he was captured. That was in 1989.

In retrospect, he sadly regretted all that had happened, not just because he was in prison, but because three lives had been lost, not counting his own.

When Eric was arrested, he said nothing about the man who had really done the killings because he was afraid that the murderer would go after his parents.

Only much later did it occur to the boy that the killer might still go after his parents if he was allowed to remain at large. Eric belatedly tried to tell the authorities about Rob. By that time, however, the District Attorney wouldn't listen. And that in spite of the fact that, in the same area, similar crimes had been committed after Eric's arrest. They are still unsolved.

It was more convenient for the DA to convict a frightened child who was being threatened with the death penalty than to trouble to go out looking for a murderer.

I met Eric in prison after his conviction. I saw much good in him and I helped him as much as I could.

Eric also befriended a man about five years older than he was. For the first time, Eric learned about true friendship. Since I don't have the man's permission to use his real name, I'll just call him "Pete." He protected the young boy from the many dangers of prison life. He showed Eric how to laugh again and make the best of his depressing life: three consecutive life sentences!

In time and turn, Eric introduced Pete to his family and had him share visits with them in the prison visiting room.

You maybe asking why I believe that the "real murderer" is still out there, and why I've told you about this friendship with Pete. Eric was simply not the aggressive, killer type. Any time someone would begin speaking about a gross subject, or would graphically describe a gory scene, Eric became physically ill. This was especially true if Eric happened to be eating. The slightest mention would destroy his appetite.

Prison is a predatory place. Desperate men want payoffs and even sex. An attractive boy has a difficult time. Pete and Eric worked out together. Although Eric was getting physically strong, he always hated violence and confrontation. He could handle most of the men who tried him, but he was still the one who would back down from a fight or avoid confrontation.

Normally, it is said to take a bigger man to avoid a fight than to start one, however that's not the way of things in prison. The predators in prison, especially the sexual predators, regard it as a sign of vulnerability; weakness. They prey upon the "weak."

That's where Pete would intervene. He protected Eric from the worst of the sexual and material predators.

In the mean time, Eric had met a woman through another friend. He ended up falling in love with her. She had a child by her first husband. For the first time in his life, Eric had some idea of how good it felt to have a family of his own. In time, however, the very thing that had given Eric the greatest joy, also gave him the worst pain. The relationship caused a problem.

Pete noticed Eric's severe depression and warned the prison administration that something was very wrong with his friend. Eric confided his desperation and frustration to his friend. The boy thought more and more about how he would never get out of prison to be with the woman and the child he loved. He would never be able to return home to his mother and father. To many of us, losing freedom is more terrible than losing life.

As Eric's condition worsened, his friends did everything we could to lift him out of his depression. At the same time, Pete repeated his warning to the prison staff that Eric needed help.

Then came a day when Eric called his friend out to tell him good-bye.

Pete was visibly shaken. He was convinced that the boy intended to save-up medication and to kill himself. He telephoned Eric's parents with the warning and decided to try to convince a guard sergeant that Eric was suicidal.

I guess that Eric knew that his friend was going to try to stop him. Eric hanged himself that next morning!.

The body hanged in the bleak cell for several hours! Supposedly he was on "observation status' and was supposed to be checked at least once an hour. Responsible diligence may have saved him.

Everyone misses him!

One would think that I would stop here, however, there's still some more I should write.

Pete awoke late that morning with an anxious feeling. Thinking that it was only because of what Eric had told him the previous evening, Pete tried to go about his normal routine. That's when he was told that Eric was dead.

All Pete could think to do was to contact the boy's parents. That's not what the prison administration wanted. The staff punished Pete and locked him up. Their excuse was that he was so distraught that he might hurt himself. Perhaps they just didn't want the parents to learn how negligent they had been.

But this is still not all.

After the prison administration locked Pete up alone in the hole where there are no witnesses "for his own protection," they gave him his "basic issue." "Basic issue" are those few necessities, like soap and a washcloth, which a person needs to keep himself clean. When Pete looked into the bag, what did he find, but a razor!

Editor's Note: It should be remembered that "Pete" was the principal witness connecting prison administrators to the suicide of Eric Motis. Prison administrators don't like threats to their positions.

Pete did nothing to himself and reported the incident to a "Ms Stewart" the next day. She tried to cover up for the razor incident by saying that he was given the razor only after the staff realized that he wouldn't hurt himself. Not only are razors not allowed in the hole, but Pete has a bread and doesn't shave at all!

The pompous DA who had prosecuted Eric, grandstanded to the press when he learned of the boy's death. But he had no idea who Eric really was. All he cared about was telling the voters that he was elated that Eric was dead.

And they call us prisoners animals!

The DA didn't stop even a moment to consider the torment Eric's parents were going through at the time.

Now many of you have gotten to know Eric a little. We know that he didn't commit those terrible crimes. Perhaps someday the real murderer will confess, but it's too late for Eric.

Everything I've told you here is true as I saw it and as it was told to me. Maybe, if enough people inquire, I may be able to get the more complete story which Eric himself wrote about his life and the crime.

As I finish typing this, October 24, 1998, another life was lost in this place, another life-sentence prisoner on psychological medication ( a man called "Looser," do you believe) hanged himself. The body hanged for hours!

My name is not important and I'm hoping that you'll hear from me again.

Editor's Note: You can reach the author by e-mailing your message to us at: motis@prisoners.com.