Practice to Deceive

added. “When I was done, I went to the bathroom on that floor and washed my hands. Then I went home and went back to bed.”
    Although he didn’t mention exactly what his victim had done, the fact that Mary Ellen’s body had been found at the top of the stairs leading to her daughters’ bedrooms suggested that she had been fighting to save them, a mother lioness protecting her young, even as she died.
    * * *
    O N JUNE 7, 1963, Mary Ellen Stackhouse’s funeral was held in the Darling-Fischer Garden Chapel with two Baptist ministers from churches she had attended performing the services. None of her children were there when Mary Ellen was buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery.
    That same day, Gilbert Thompson, his parents, probation officials, a court clerk, and a sole reporter attended a hearing regarding what jurisdiction would handle the teenager’s trial. He was currently being held in Santa Clara County’s Juvenile Hall. A further hearing was set for June 17 to determine if Thompson would be turned over to juvenile authorities or if he would face murder charges in superior court.
    With his long history of sexual assaults, the latter seemed the best option. Gilbert Thompson’s juvenile probation officer, P. R. Silva, described an early interview with him, a time when Silva had expected the teenager to show emotion or cry.
    “Gilbert expressed regret over what he had done, particularly at leaving six children motherless, but he showed no physical signs of remorse.”
    The defendant hadn’t cried or trembled. He neither blushed nor turned pale as he spoke of his vicious attack on Mary Ellen Stackhouse.
    Gilbert first wanted to plead insanity, but then he decided to go for a trial.
    Gilbert Thompson was charged as an adult in superior court, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison. Because of his age, he would spend two years in a boys’ reformatory before he was transferred to the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo.
    He would be permitted to ask for a parole hearing every five years.
    “This is one of my saddest days ever on the bench,” the judge said. Gilbert Thompson didn’t appear to share the judge’s feelings. Instead, he motioned to the bailiff and asked, “Can you let me know the winner of the World Series game?”
    He was only seventeen, but his sexual deviancy was deeply entrenched.

C HAPTER T WENTY-THREE
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    W HEN JIMMIE AND HIS six children arrived at Whidbey Island for his change of duty, he built a house for his family. Their Aunt Ellen opened her home to them until Jimmie had finished the new house. The navy gave him as much leave as it could, but eventually Jimmie had to go back to duty.
    He hired a local woman, the divorced mother of two small daughters—Amy, who was four, and Sue, nine—to be a live-in housekeeper and take care of his children. Her name was Doris Alton née Anderson, and she was eight months older than Jimmie.
    Physically, Doris was nothing like Mary Ellen. She was not a beauty as Jimmie’s first wife had been, but rather a petite, average-looking woman. She wore her blondish-brown hair cut short and rolled up just below her ears and eschewed makeup.
    But Doris pleased Jimmie with her ability at organization and homemaking. That was the most important thing to him as he tried to re-create at least the semblance of a normal household where he and his six children could move past the tragedy they lived through at Moffett Field.
    Doris had just been divorced from her daughters’ (Amy and Sue Alton) father, and she needed someone to help her raise them. Alton had signed away all of his legal rights to the girls.
    Jimmie wasn’t an outwardly affectionate man; he showed his love for his family by trying to provide everything physical that they needed.
    Beyond his expertise in the navy, he was a man who could do virtually anything: carpentry, make furniture, and he was “smart as a whip” according to his children. He was a plumber, mechanic, and he had a photographic memory. Even so, he never could spell or sing.
    He had built the fine house on Edgecliff Drive in Langley: seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. All by himself, he sanded, stained, and hung twenty-four mahogany doors.
    When Jimmie poured cement for a window well, he let his children place their hands carefully in the wet cement, and then etched their initials beside the small handprints.
    They are still there a half century later.
    The Stackhouse children came to love