JOAN KIGER

Fred Fischer wearily leans back into the old rocking chair, and as it creaks in protest, he finds himself empathizing with the tired thing.  At 81 years old, he sometimes feels his age catching up to him.  His balding head is crowned by wispy remnants of cotton-white hair, and timelines of his story appear as wrinkles across his once youthful face.  His piercing blue eyes still visibly spark, though, especially when gazing on the highlight of his age: his grandchildren.  There is a twinkle in them now as he looks across the room at the eldest of his bloodline’s third generation, Kelsey.  Now that she is 21 years old, Fred has trouble recalling the baby she once was as he admires the young woman she has become. 

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In contrast to the vigor she brings to the room, Fred glances to his right at the other woman, his older sister.  They have all gathered at her house for this event, and he fondly assesses her.  Like Fred, Mary has lived a good life and now spends her time at Church or enjoying the privilege of grandparenthood.  She is a petite shell of a woman, short even compared to Fred’s own small 5’2’’ frame.  She turns her white head to face him and asks if he is ready.  Fred quietly nods and brings his attention back to Kelsey, who is conducting an interview to help her write a local history paper.  She proceeds to ask a series of painful questions, probing into a dark place in their past and forcing Fred and Mary to search their memories for pieces they had long since hidden. 

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She wants to know about Joan. 

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***

It was the summer of 1943, and the heat was suffocating that year.  The little farmhouse in Frogtown, Kentucky was no exception to the sweltering temperatures, and the fact that Carl refused to open any of the windows only made things worse.   Carl Kiger had become increasingly paranoid as of late.  He was an up and coming politician in the city of Covington, having recently been elected Vice-Mayor after successfully pushing the formation and development of the anti-administration coalition.  As he made his way around the house that evening, he quietly peered out of the draped windows across the dark yard and sighed.  He double checked the locks and proceeded to make his way up the stairs.  The eerie creak of his weight on the stairs alerted Jennie that her husband was soon to join her in their bed.  She smiled to herself as she allowed the events of the day run past her mind’s eye.  Today was their wedding anniversary.  Twenty-four years to the day she had said, “I do” to the gangly young man waiting for her at the end of the aisle.  They had experienced quite a bit over the years, but overall, they had lived a good life.  Due to Carl’s political position, they were able to afford things that others around them could only dream of, like that trip to Cuba the previous summer.  Jennie’s brow crinkled slightly as she recalled the noticeable absence of their daughter, Joan, from the anniversary party earlier.  Her sixteen-year-old daughter had spent the day enjoying Coney Island with her friends instead of hanging around the family.  Jennie had allowed her to go willingly, but she had missed the lively presence Joan brought to a party.  When Carl entered the room, she smiled at her husband and gave him a kiss as he climbed into bed.  It was 10:32 p.m., and Jennie was grateful for the early night, being weary from the day’s excitement.  She drifted to sleep wrapped in Carl’s arms.  

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She didn’t realize that it was to be the last time she’d ever see him alive. 

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***

Jennie’s senses exploded; it all happened so fast.  The shadowy figure at the door.  The successive explosions that left her ears ringing.  Her husband’s body involuntarily flopping against her side immediately before a red-hot pain seared into her hip.  Jerking back into the bed from the impact, Jennie reactions were instinctual.  Her hand flew to the gushing wound before reaching up to cover her mouth to mask her whimpers.   The taste of warm blood.  Her eyes frantically searched for an answer in the black night, but an empty doorway was her only reply.  As the ringing began to fade, her stomach instinctively clenched, as though a pair of hands were slowly wringing out her insides.  Her hearing had returned to bring back the reality of the nightmare just in time to hear the cries of her six-year-old son down the hall.  His desperate screams for her… Mommy!…Mommy!…before the fourth explosion in the night. 

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A final gunshot pierced the air on the little farm, silencing the cries of Jennie’s little boy forever.  

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***

The keys on Kelsey’s keyboard click rapidly as she tries to capture the details Fred and Mary reveal as they fill in each other’s memories, recalling this dark period in their family history.  She raises her eyes from her laptop to meet Mary’s; as the older of the two, Mary remembers more than Fred about that distant summer.

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Mary whispers, “Joan was arrested the next day on the charge of murdering her father and brother, as well as shooting her mother.” 

“Our mother was not only Joan’s aunt but also her godmother,” Fred interjects.   “The day Joan got arrested, mother went out to the jail to see what she could do.  I remember her saying the hardest part was that she had to be present during Joan’s strip search since Jennie was in the hospital getting treatment for her gunshot.”

Mary nods and continues, “Our family was in complete shock.  We’d just seen Uncle Carl and Aunt Jennie the day before at their party; no one knew what to think of Joan.  There were even whispers of it being a mafia hit because Carl was rumored to be involved with the Covington Syndicate; we always wondered how they had so much money.  Those rumors died down, though, once Jennie admitted that she knew Joan was the killer.”

“What happened then?!” Kelsey pleads, curiosity driving her to come off as impatient.  Realizing this, she checks her tone. “So let me recap: your sixteen-year-old cousin, Joan, shot and killed her six-year-old brother and father, injured her mother, and then was arrested.  I thought you said there was some good in this story; how is any of this good?”

“Good is relative, dear,” Mary chides, looking at Fred to explain.

Fred adds, “Joan was acquitted.  She spent a lot of time in mental evaluation, including some time in the Menninger Clinic, which is still the best mental institution in the United States even to this day.  After months awaiting trial, the jury took five days to deliberate and come up with the verdict: she was found not guilty by Homicidal Somnambulism[1].  She was proven to have suffered from severe night terrors and committed the murder in her sleep, thinking that there was an intruder in the house that she was shooting at.”

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“Aunt Jennie refused to testify against her daughter and prayed for the jury to rule in her favor,” Mary concludes with a gentle nod of her head. 

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***

In 2004, the Boone County Courthouse in Burlington, Kentucky hosted a mock trial for one of the most infamous cases in Northern Kentucky history: the murder of Carl Kiger.  Actors stood in for the parts of the accused, Joan Kiger, her mother, Jennie, their prominent lawyer, Sawyer Smith, and the jury.   Among those in attendance were extended relatives of the Kiger family, including Mary W., Fred F., Cammie H., and countless others; having lived through the historical event’s aftermath, they were interested to retrace the process of Joan’s acquittal, which had both healed and broken the family.  Also among the crowd were several high school teachers from Jefferson County in Louisville, co-workers of a Mary Kiler, friendly counselor and kind soul who had passed away 35 years earlier.  For them, the trial was a shocking revelation that Mary Kiler and Joan Kiger were the same person; they had never known anything about her previous life while her family members never knew what happened to her after the trial.  Joan Kiger had faded into family history after the “incident,” and no one except Jennie and her sister, Mary and Fred’s mother, knew her whereabouts.  

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She lived out the rest of her days unmarried, never trusting herself to live with another person again. 

***

Kelsey closes her laptop as she concludes her interview.  She looks between her grandpa and great-aunt, struggling to take in the story they have spent the past hour piecing together.  In her minds eye, self-constructed images flash rapidly through her consciousness: the warm, summer night at the farmhouse; the twenty-fourth anniversary party; the shadowy figure in the doorway; the gunshots that broke the silence and the family; Joan telling the neighbors that her family had been shot by an intruder; police swarming the dead Vice-Mayor’s house; the circulating mob theories; the prolonged trial; the final acquittal; Joan’s departure to Louisville.  

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I guess all family trees have twisted roots buried deep somewhere, she reflects. 

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[1] Somnambulism is also known as sleepwalking, which occurs during Stage 3 of the Sleep Cycle, or deep sleep.  It is difficult to wake the sleeper at this time and cases have been noted during which the sleepwalker has performed tasks while unconscious.  Homicidal Somnambulism is “a case of a homicide and an attempted homicide during presumed sleepwalking is reported in which somnambulism was the legal defense and led to an acquittal.