Dimensions of Death

                                          Dimensions of Death

                                                Synopsis
                                    Author-  Danise Wallace-Gurule

         Bloody scenes of a killing and my father's last breath roared through my mind. When I awoke I knew this was another premonition, not a nightmare, and that my life would never be the same.

         My daddy had been acting deeply disturbed: he showed up with a rifle threatening to kill my mom, made remarks about there being drug trafficking on the boats where he worked, and then he threatened to "not be there" when I returned. At the age of eighteen I was unsure what to do about it all, and I had to leave with my husband so he could return to work in California.

         And then Dad went missing from the tugboat where he worked in Galveston Bay. He was my only security in life and I was devoted to him, despite his sometimes-violent behavior. Besides being worried sick, the premonition replayed in my head over and over, and I blamed myself--thinking I could have prevented his disappearance somehow.

         I returned home to Texas to find cops haphazardly wandering around the tugboat and barge where he had last been seen. I felt extreme guilt for leaving him in the state he was in. The pain was nearly unbearable; I considered running my truck into a cement column of a hometown bridge. I struggled to hold onto hope that he would just show up and it would all be over. The holidays went past and weeks turned into months in the New Year, 1979, as we waited.

         Then, 275 miles from Galveston Bay, a body washed up on the shore of Matamoros, Mexico. It was identified through a presumptive I.D. only. The man was wearing a ring that had been Dad's and had his wallet. Mexican officials had conducted an autopsy. There appeared to have been blows to the head, just as I had seen in the vision, and newspaper headlines said that he was assassinated.

But, when my Aunts flew down to make a visual identification the Mexican authorities refused to let them see the body. And the body had somehow managed to make it nearly three hundred miles against the prevailing current of the Gulf of Mexico.

There were rumors of foul play, a man eventually confessed to killing my dad, two autopsies were conflicting, and no one in law enforcement would open an investigation. It became apparent there was a cover-up. I began a lifelong struggle to uncover the truth.

         The day of the funeral, they had a print of one my pictures of Daddy on top of the beautiful, blue, steel casket. I was so scared and so upset. I kept thinking over and over that they would show me his body after the service, before they took him away. I chose a poem for the service, by Tennyson. While being read aloud that day, it ripped into my soul with each word that reminded me of his body floating in the sea as he found his way home. The few words that I will always remember are," And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea. " 

         When the service was over I finally was absolutely desperate to be sure it was Daddy inside, and began to try to open the casket. Some men came up to take me away from it and I began fighting them off and screaming, "It's my Daddy damn it, let me see him!"

         At the gravesite I placed a rose on the top of the casket before leaving; they were going to put my dad under all that dirt and I was thinking, "Hell I am not even sure it is him! People have seen him alive! Is it really him?"

         I struggled through a few marriages, and two kids later was still grieving and trying to get the cops to listen. While fighting the demons of the past I decided to become a cop, in hopes that it would lead to some sort of findings and closure. I did well in the police academy, graduated and began my career in Texas. But, I learned the hard way that making waves while working in law enforcement was not a good idea. They wouldn't let me push other agencies to investigate because it caused difficulty between the agencies. And using police resources was out of the question.

I couldn't afford to lose my job; I was a single mom with two kids. And I worried that it could place us all in danger. The killer is still out there, I know. I went face to face with him.  He told my brother just enough for us to know that he took part in Dad's death. We also heard from another source about the fight on the barge.

         Besides the intense premonition I had of Dad's death at the time of his disappearance, there were a number of unexplainable incidents involving sightings of him alive. He spoke to my sister and my daughter, and my brother believes he saw him. There was wet clothing that showed up lying on the floor in his house, the day he went missing from a vessel out on the water.  I spoke to a number of psychics who generally confirmed our suspicions about my Dad's fate, and foul play.

         I have collected a great deal of documentation that I have included in the manuscript. There are also copies of the two contradictory reports (autopsies) and the photos of the body. I have searched for police reports for decades, to no avail. The FBI told me at one point that there was a file and then later denied that it ever existed.
         
          Experiencing extreme pain and grief for years over the unanswered questions; not being certain if this is his body or not, and if he is dead, whether the killer will ever be brought to justice. Now that I am grown, I understand why they would not let me see my daddy’s body. We were told to leave it alone by law enforcement. Why?