Mortal Danger

occurred so that I—and then my readers—can know what it is like to live there. What is the weather like? What grows there? How does the air feel? How do people make a living? And even what local culinary treats abound there? In my head, I’m picturing us walking through a heretofore unknown place and, together, observing what happened there.
    Many people have the mistaken idea that I write only about the Northwest, but I have spent weeks and months in New York, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Delaware, California, Idaho, and many other locales where crimes occurred. I have probably attended more than a hundred trials. This book happens to have cases that occurred in the Northwest, where I have lived for many years—yet there are links to the East Coast, too.
    Frightening my readers is never my goal, but I do want to warn you of possible danger. I want you to be conscious of what’s happening around you and be ready to question odd comments, requests, pleas, life stories, and the people who tell them to you.
    You are your first line of defense. Always remember that.
     
    Sometimes I shudder to think of how many stories I have told about cases involving possessive, controlling men and hapless, hopeless women. Although they are all true, and involve scores of couples who don’t know one another—and never will—the three-act “play” of each relationship might well have been written by the same author. The first act is all about romance and trust; it moves along so gently that the woman who will soon be captive never senses danger. The second act is a slow progression—he cuts her off from her friends, her family, her job, and her self-respect, until she finds herself dancing to whatever tune her formerly perfect lover chooses to play.
    The third act can end one of three ways: (1) the emotionally imprisoned woman gives up and remains with the man who forbids her to leave him; (2) she escapes from him but is left with a constant sense of someone silently stalking her; or (3) their “love story” turns tragic, and she dies at his hand. In the possessive lover’s mind, she always belongs to him. He finds this perfectly reasonable, and since the trapped woman had the audacity and cruelty to run from him, she deserves to die.
    With every case of domestic violence I write, I am hoping and praying that I will warn other women who are on the verge of turning their lives over to a man who has shown them only a mask—a façade. I want to shake them enough to make them back away in time. I also hope that I may give women already captive the strength to leave. Butwhen a woman is entrenched in a sick relationship, it’s difficult to escape. She may have no income of her own. She may be very afraid. She has to find someplace to live, some way to support herself, some way to find secure child care. She may also have to locate shelter for beloved pets.
    This first case—Mortal Danger—is perhaps one of the strangest and most mysterious tales of obsessive love I have ever encountered. When I began to follow this twisted and interlaced story, I found that each door I opened led to another door.
    Did I ever get to the final door? I’m not entirely sure. It may be that there are readers who hold the answers to puzzles that came about because of a man called “Mr. Williams.” Maybe someone out there knew him by one of his many names. Maybe the end of the story will come from you.
    Time and again, John Williams stated that his true goal in life was to help people—to help bring them health, wealth, and happiness. His full legal name was John William Branden, but he often found it more convenient to use one of any number of pseudonyms. The women he attracted had the same goals: a desire to serve others. He appeared to be a companion who would join with them so that, together, they would be more effective in doing good.
    It was only natural that love and respect also came along with Mr. Williams. Or Dr. Branden. Or Jack Hennings. He used all those names—and more. In the beginning, no woman could have asked for a kinder lover.
    I make no bones about it—this is a terrifying, cautionary tale. If it saves some lives with its warning, the womenwho moved through it, caught between life and death, will be forever grateful and know that some good came out of telling it. If you recognize yourself in it, run ! It doesn’t matter if a woman who is targeted by an obsessive, possessive lover is a high-school dropout