The Things We Remember...

Authors Note: This story contains themes and mentions of the following: suicide, gore/violence, mental health.

We all have our regrets. Some we get to change, others we must live with for our whole lives. Some regrets are terrible, unforgivable things. Others aren't bad at all, but they are all regrets for a reason. My regret falls in the former. It is an evil thing, and it haunts me now, 20 years later. And I know it will haunt me to my last breath, Which is undoubtedly soon. well, you want to know what I did? I murdered my daughter. my beautiful, precious daughter. I still dream about her, sometimes still hear her laugh. her happy, innocent little laugh. I still miss her to this day. and I have never forgiven myself to this day. Oh, how I remember...

It was January 16, 2002. She and my husband were playing outside. Yes, I had a husband. I forget his name, though. I have forgotten everything. And as they were playing, I got so mad. Why should he get to play with our daughter? Why can't I take some time off to play with her? I walked outside and called his name. He didn't respond, so I called louder. He looked at me, winked, and continued playing with our daughter. I was infuriated. He had no right to ignore me like this. So I fumed, as I made lunch. Hotdogs, with a side of coleslaw. As our daughter was too young to eat food that you had to chew, I should have known better, should have known better then to feed her it. and then, and then... she started choking. Neither me nor my husband knew what to do. I was in so much pain during my pregnancy, I barely went out of the house, so I had no time for a course on mothering. I expected my husband to know something, though, and I started screaming at him. He started yelling back at me, and then we were fighting, fighting right as our lovely daughter was dying, dying right in front of us. and then? she let out a screech, a terrible, terrible screech. And do you know what she said? my beautiful baby girl who had never said a word? mama. It was the first and last word she ever spoke. and then her chest stopped moving. for a moment, everything was quiet, suspended in space. Then I broke as I screamed, screamed my heart out. screaming, still screaming, I launched myself at my husband, and started attacking him. I grabbed whatever I found In the kitchen and slashed and stabbed. I gored his eyes out, slashed a smile on his face. I mutilated his body. I hacked at his arms and legs, attempting to saw them off. I still don't know what possessed me to do this. maybe the love for my darling baby girl, sitting dead in her pink high chair with the butterflys on it. I had searched everywhere for one she would like, taking her with me on trips to bye bye baby, touring the aisles together. Then, one day as I was about to give up, she laughed and pointed at one, the one I was currently splattering with blood, gore and body fluids. I could see his skull, see his brains all over the kitchen table we had just been happily eating hotdogs and coleslaw on. The result was a messy, bloody scene. The thing I had grabbed was the knife I used to cut the hotdogs that we had been dining on just minutes before. then I called nine one one, and told them everything that had happened. That was the last time I spoke. They recovered the bodies, and I was whisked away in an ambulance. They told me that if I had called nine one one when she started choking, she could have been saved. When I heard that, I shattered inside. I had lost my baby daughter, my husband, and my freedom. I had killed my baby and a man. After I heard that, I became suicidal. I didn’t eat, and the jail that kept me had to keep me naked as I would hang myself otherwise. I was put on trial, and plead guilty to first-degree murder. I was put on death row for your murder, my husband. And now, your name is coming back to me, dear husband. Henry, oh Henry. Henry, who never hurt anyone, I am on death row for my murder of you. And no one cares about our dead daughter, buried six feet under in the hospital graveyard. No one alive knows her name, except I.

After staying here for 20 years, it has just been announced that I shall be subject to death by the gas chamber. My final meal is hotdogs and coleslaw, which was also my daughter's last meal. Then I am walked to the gas chamber. I think I don’t want to die without my family, but here I am, dying because of them. And then the gas starts pouring in and everything is cloudy and I have one breath left what shall I say, what shall I say, oh I know the jail keepers who are watching me can hear me, so this is for you my darling baby girl- “Ashley.”

2020, June 27            Angela Markinson

Yesterday a local woman was subjected to death by gas chamber. Her crime was murdering her 47 year old husband, Henry Fergansin. In her written confession, she had also said she was guilty of killing her 4 month year old daughter, Ashley Fergansin. Ashley was found dead at the scene, and her autopsy showed death by asphyxiation. Though we do not know what happened, experts can piece together that while the family was dining, Ashley started choking. The woman and her husband started fighting, and Ashley succumbed to asphyxiation. The woman noticed, grabbed a knife, and attacked her husband, brutally murdering him. 

The woman was 42 at the time of death, and her last word was "Ashley". We can only guess she meant her daughter. The woman's name was Lucy Mae Fergansin. She had no existing family, and is not survived by anyone.